Wild Rose (always my favourite!) - Missoula, Montana

"…suddenly you flare in my sight, / a wild rose blooming at the edge / of thicket, grace and light...

and once more I am blessed, choosing / again what I chose before."

 - from The Wild Rose by Wendell Berry

 

Young Bucks - Missoula, Montana

Much as our "wild" deer annoy me by ransacking my lovingly planted flowers and vegetables (IN my small townie yard in a dense neighborhood!), even I can appreciate that these young bucks are quite beautiful with their sleek caramel coats and still-velvety (but scary) antlers. (Did i mention scary? Have you SEEN that fight scene in Bambi ?).

 

Traffic Stop - Lincoln, Montana

Why I Love Montana: Reason # 392: 
Even if it's on the main highway through town, traffic still stops and people don't get their feathers ruffled. (I mean, courtesy costs you nothing, and what's an extra 5 minutes under the calming gaze of that vast Montana sky?)

Buttercups Despite - Missoula, Montana

“Yellow is my favorite, but what is yellow? Handmaiden to white, it is a slight tarnish of pure light. Take away a bit of whites absolute luminosity, and what remains is yellow -- sunlike, golden as a crown, buttercups in a field, marsh marigolds, a finch's wing, a plastic flute.”

- Richard Grossinger

(& yes, this photo was taken earlier in the spring...)

Green Leaf Joy and Shadow - Missoula, Montana

"....What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning..." 

- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), from Spring