'Antique' Tree - University Peak, Missoula, Montana

“Trees are your best antiques.” - Alexander Smith (1829 – 1867)

Into the Fog - Missoula, Montana

"...The reveries of ruins asked: “Will no  

one come?” The skeletons of trees inquired:  

“And who are you, forever on the go?”..."

- From 'In the Fog' by Giovanni Pascoli, as translated by Geoffrey Brock

Winter Courage - Missoula, Montana

"Get a bicycle. 
 
You will certainly not regret it.
 
If you live."  

– Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), US writer and humorist (1835-1910)

Interestingly enough, this particular bicycle was parked outside that venerable Missoula beverage establishment, Charlie B's.

Foggy Winter Weeds - Missoula, Montana

“What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness?

Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”- Gerard Manley Hopkins: 1881  'Inversnaid'

December Charms - Missoula, Montana

"...How swift spring-summer-autumn drift

To epitaphs scrawled on a gift

Of moment-gold we cannot hold

For Time is insistent and bold

…and strips the bud that broke and thrilled

The limb where spring and summer spilled

To winds of phantom, freight-like train

That brings December once again

It rumbles from wide open skies

And showers silver sparkle-sighs

To eventide once dull and brown

December is November’s crown"

- From "December...again" by © Janet Martin

Ponder Janet's full poem here - your soul will thank you.

Lichen The Neighborhood - Missoula, Montana

"There are often inquiries about cultivating lichens...Alas, there's no reliable way anyone has found to keep lichens going once they've been relocated... We can't tame lichens; as Irwin Brodo has said, in Lichens of North America, "...lichens are the essence of wildness." " - Stephen Sharnoff, in his essay 'Lichens and Oaks: A Deep Partnership'

Naked Tree Thought - Missoula, Montana

"The trees down the boulevard stand naked in thought,

Their abundant summery wordage silenced, caught

In the grim undertow; naked the trees confront

Implacable winter's long, cross-questioning brunt."

- D. H. Lawrence, Winter in the Boulevard, 1916

Radial Pine Patterns - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

The radial twist of these deadfall limbs was more apparent when it was right in front of me, but contrast patterns still abound betwixt sun, snow and shadows.