Lift Your Eyes - Absaroka Range, Livingston, Montana

Over the river (and Interstate-90, and miscellaneous mountains…) and through the woods …and you’ll eventually arrive at Yellowstone National Park. (In its early 1900’s heyday, you could gray trip to the Park on the tourist train direct from the Livingston, Montana depot.)

Weighted Sky - Big Belt Mountains, Near Helena, Montana

“[The Montana sky], it vaulted and one could get crushed under the weight of heaven.”

- Gabriel Du Pré in Specimen Song by Peter Bowen (1945-2020)

Quiet Reflection.- Missoula, Montana

Today's gorgeous evening view overlooking Missoula is courtesy of Pat Richards, who also shares her hands-on India / Asia perspectives at JourneysWithGod.com.
Thanks, Pat, for always making the time to share your guest blogger Montana perspectives!

In moments of quiet reflection, I begin to see clearer the depths of who I am. 
Are the waters of my soul still, clear, reflecting light?
I pray it is so.

For the world beyond deserves to see beauty, light and life in me.

Remote - Livingston, Montana

"This sudden remote bowl of pasture is called the Tierny Basin - or would be , if any human voice were there to say it's name." - Ivan Doig (1939-2015), This House of Sky, p 23

(Note: This is not a photo of the actual Tierney Basin, which is near the small town of Maudlow, Montana, north of Bozeman.)

Overlooking East Missoula, Montana

“The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what ‘the story of the trees’ would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.” - Author unknown, quoted in "Quotations for Special Occasions” by Maud van Buren, 1938

Hardy Summit Dweller - Mount Jumbo, Missoula, Montana

I Dwell in Possibility – (466)

By Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

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.

Chasing the Light, Missoula, Montana

The wide expanse of these golden hills at Missoula’s north end remind me of Wesley’s

great tumbling line from The Princess Bride, “Aaaas… Yoooou….. Wiiiiiish!”.

Mountains In Your Eyes, Lolo, Montana

More thoughts from Colleen Hull-Gray, today's guest post author.

I grew up on the Alberta prairies with an occasional trip that gave me a glimpse and deep love of the Rocky Mountains. After moving to Montana, I gorged on the beauty of various mountain ranges - Bitterroots, Sapphires, the ranges around Lewistown and the Rocky Mountains near Livingston. Eons ago Marie Osmond and Dan Seals sang, "Won't you meet me in Montana; I wanna see the mountains in your eyes." No thanks. I don't want to see reflected mountains. Even in beautiful eyes. Just let me see the mountains.

Hazy Valley, Missoula, MT

The Missoula Valley of western Montana hung under a haze of smoke yesterday, continuing pretty much the same today. But it could have been worse & actually smelled of smoke. Here's hoping for rain.
(Chicken coop courtesy of the rockin'est ranch in Missoula.)

Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch, Missoula, Montana

So, for all you parents who still kick your kids outside to play, remember that it really is healthier than watching T.V., even if they cook up entertainment of the daring variety. Boys will be boys, and, as the song says, chicks dig it.