Handsome Pastures - Near Ovando, Montana

"All over the land are vast and handsome pastures, with good grass for cattle, and it strikes me the soil would be very fertile were the country inhabited and improved by reasonable people."

- Alvar N. C. de Vaca (c.1490-c.1557)

Gas Stop On The Hi-Line - Shelby, Montana

"Go back to sleep. The hour is small.

     A freight train between stations

Shook you out of sleep with all

        Its lonely ululations....

The hour is small. Resume your rest. 

        Tomorrow will be kinder. 

Here comes a freight train nosing west, 

        Pulling the dawn behind her."

- From Lullaby Near the Railroad Tracks by A. E. Stallings

Read the full text of this lovely train poem here.

Long Road Home - Near Ovando, Montana

Walking out to the school bus on childhood weekday mornings, our driveway seemed to be at least a mile long.. We moved from the farm when I was 12, and the first time I drove by our old home as an adult, I realized my younger perspective was rather skewed - a mile was extremely far-fetched. Six-year old eyes - and little legs - see a view entirely their own.

Perspective is an interesting thing. When you're in the middle of your own, it's hard to see any other. Rather along the lines of "can't see the forest for the trees". But if we can draw from other experience - even borrowed will do! - and mentally and emotionally step slightly outside our immediate circumstance, we see a bigger picture that is often less dire than we'd first supposed. And this can, in turn, inform our next choices with an entirely different, brighter light. 

Enact, pause, repeat. 

And be reminded how this living and learning requires time and grace!

Big Sky Reflections - Near Browns Lake, Montana

The fishing access sign just up the road announced three miles to Browns Lake, where it's reported by those who know such things that "...Trolling is best done using weighted flies such as Wooly Worms and standard spoons and spinners." But shore anglers can find success with marshmallows and cheese. Bring some graham crackers and chocolate and you'll be set for the campfire, too.

Latest Greatest Discovery - Missoula, Montana

Eureka! Split scoops are available on a sugar cone!

For the ice cream novice, a split scoop means you avoid the agony of decision when you really, really  want two flavours but only want a single scoop's worth of ice cream.

For some unknown reason made up on my own pea brain, I always thought this option only was served in a cup.  And - no offense to The Best Hisband Ever and Delightful Daughter - what is the point of ice cream in a cup? There's no dripping that you must hastily - and tastily! - amend, no satisfying crunches, no perfect miniature cone at the very end that you eat in one bite....Especially when Sweet Peaks has the most delicious, pointy sugar cones? (They also offer the soft-serve style  cone, which takes me back to my Baba's house where ice cream always tasted better served in a flat-bottom cone.)

Featured flavours are Chocolate Sorbet (dark chocolate with a subtle undertone of coconut) and Strawberry Rhubarb Jam (with homemade jam - I'm not making this up!). 

(Notice the big bite marks: 
   "My, what lovely teeth you have, my dear!"
   "The better to eat you with!!" 
   Munch munch munch!)

Brilliant Success - Missoula, Montana

"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time." 

- Steve Jobs (1951-2011)

Staircase And Storytelling - Missoula, Montana

"As we get older, we demand stories that go somewhere. ...Storytelling isn’t an Escher staircase."

 - Dave Morris, from an essay published 4/18/2015 here at  The Bookseller 

Snow Survivors - Missoula, Montana

Local wisdom warns that it's not safe, weather-wise, to set out bedding plants before Memorial Day, but these Gerbera daisies made it through last week's snow and have peeked up rather nicely.