Captured Clouds - Missoula, Montana

I liked the echo image
of captured snow beneath wintry clouds
 - bearing more snow!

Quiet Reflection - Missoula, Montana

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."

- Peter F. Drucker

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)

Pollen-Dusted - Missoula, Montana

“I made myself a glass of chocolate milk using enough syrup for three normal glasses. I also made myself four peanut butter crackers. Then I walked out the living room door to our terrace.
The trees were coming!
New green was all over ... green so new that it was kissing yellow.”
-E.L. Konigsburg,"Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth"

Autumn Still Life - Corvallis, Montana

“Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.” -
Ambrose Bierce

SunTwirl, Missoula, Montana

sparsely rhymed

sunTwirl
unfurl
greening to the light

fresh start
spring heart
winter dreams beknight
 
-CHull

Seeing Red, Missoula, Montana

A co-worker remarked recently how, despite growing up in Montana, she had never before noticed the abundance of red brush growing in varied regions of our fair state. The visual spareness of almost-spring perfectly sets off such vibrant infrastructure. This close-in view (yes, dear sister who will wonder, the shrub embraced me, plus anchored me from further leaf-mold slip down the bank) brings to mind Jacob's speckled sheep sticks; perhaps a boon of herefords are headed this direction.

Red Berries, Missoula, Montana

 “...the winter is kind and leaves red berries on the boughs for hungry sparrows...” ― John Geddes, "A Familiar Rain"

Suspended, Missouri Headwaters State Park, Three Forks, Montana

When chinook winds gently reduced our snow forts to languid farmyard water features, this signaled perfect timing for a spontaneous dessert trip to the W & E drive-in. These days, we never consider transporting more bodies than there are seatbelts in a vehicle - oh, the horror! But in the idyllic era of my childhood, the art of condensed transport was highly refined by our family of nine. You’d be amazed how many people can stack on a pick-up truck bench seat and still allow enough wiggle for the driver to shift gears. And any leftovers rode in the back with the dog - oh, the joy! - for the mile ride to town.
Our sardine-like forays to town yielded two treats: a creamy, soft-serve ice cream sundae, and its long, clear plastic serving dish. I say “serving dish", but it was really a boat, perfectly designed for drifting on the placid waters of Barnyard Lake. (C‘mon - I was five; it truly seemed vast enough that I was afraid of falling in.) Hunched along my own little shore, feet clad in red-toed rubber boots and imagination fueled by tales of The Borrowers and Stuart Little, I would play play play until called in from the gloaming to wash up for bed. Children don’t require reminders to seize the day.

Rooted, Livingston, Montana

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”
-Simone Weil
(1909-1943)

Raining Again, Alberton, Montana

For the weather whingers out there who bemoaned the cold and snow: I hope you’re happy now.

Rainy days in the low 40s Fahrenheit resolving to nighttime lows around freezing make for an interesting morning commute hereabouts.

But beauty still abounds, as here in the misting rain suspended on last season’s tenacious leaves.

Shadow Play, Sealy Lake, Montana

An early afternoon winter sun, high in the sky, creates replica twigs on the snow‘s surface.
 
Walking behind our shadows along a Forest Service road, I was reminded of entertaining childhood saunters. After the school bus spit us out at the top of our driveway, we'd dawdle our way to the house, procrastinating against daily chores. Inevitably, one naughty shadow child would box someone else’s shadow head. And thus began a round of shadow pokes, acrobatic kicks and twisting evasions, backed by much giggling and an occasional triumphant “I got you!”. Good times. 
And no one ever lost an eye. Shadows are amenable that way.

Feather Flotsam, Missoula, Montana

As an adult, I don’t know whether or not it’s true. But as a child, I fervently believed the convincing words of a grade-school teacher to our little sponge selves as she explained how wee bits of yarn and string and miscellaneous whatnot scattered out of doors would be used by birds in the spring to build their nests. A soft length of mohair yarn, blown into the tall grass, once inspired images of cozy comfort for feathered friends.
After personally picking up a couple bags of bits and pieces the birds apparently rejected, I think there are two possibilities: 1-our teacher was a bit daft, or at least excessively idealistic, or 2- she had it in for our parents and derived some pathetic satisfaction in knowing we’d all go home and earnestly lobby our bewildered elders to take us on yarn flinging expeditions to help the poor little birdies. I will give her this: long Alberta winters can make for some pretty desperate bids for entertainment.

Nesting Instinct, Missoula, Montana

When you think about them, even the most prosaic of bird nests are pretty amazing. I mean, fluffy little birds twitter and flitter and pluck and stuff random twigs and bits of string and whatyagot. And the outcome is a resilient structure that shelters their delicate eggs and subsequent offspring from whatever the weather dishes out, and this creation often survives a year or more after the chicks have grown and flown. It's good for the soul to consider the common and remember to be amazed.

Vacancy - Empty Nest at Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge, Stevensville, Montana

Spring can't make up its mind about coming to the Bitterroot Valley, but there are plenty of birds already performing their spring arias at Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge.