Montana Spring

 on Ruby Valley Road

Spring in Montana! Springtime in the Rockies is life, fun, newness, beauty, you name it! I love spring here. The extremes of the climate here creates such a desire to see spring with its green and flowers and little babies everywhere. Winter blows in frozen and beautiful. Birds leave for warmer weather. The air stays clear, silent and cold. Mountains ruggedly cut across clear, snapping, silent, cold blue sky. Beautiful doesn't begin to describe it. Yet when spring comes! Wow! The sounds of life, green grass, millions of wildflowers in all their delicate beauty, sleek calves bobbing around the pasture, birds landing on willows, color everywhere. So it's a different beauty. Did I say I love Montana?

Elements

One of my favorite elements here...I love food!!!! Laurel's kringle is on the right...and then strawberries and toasted pecans and walnuts...things I'll miss

Laundry!

Laurel and I have talked about this several times; laundry on the line is cool! It's like Little House on the Prairie and all things clean and green! The wind whips it, it smells good, it's pretty...so many good things about sheets on a line.

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

This picture is worth 1000 words, to me anyway. How can sky infuse you with a sense of life and a good dash of joy? It does! That little flat rimrock (shadowed side, sunshiny top, at the end of the shadowed hill) is one of my favorite places. I can sit up there and share the day with my family via phone. It's one of the closest places to cell service! It's beautiful up there, and I love it. I think Mom has heard me say, "Man, I LOVE this place!" quite a few times while I was sitting up there talking to her. Those mountains, the Centennials, give a kind of joy too. I love looking at them. I can stare at them for longer than I would've thought, and whenever I do,  my mind tries to probe pathways up into them. I'd love to get to the top sometime! That would be so COOL!

Mesa Falls: Henry's Fork of the Snake

Mesa Falls...the beautiful, peaceful Henry's Fork of the Snakes curves and flows around many quiet river bends. Not all of it is quiet though! Mesa Falls takes a quiet river and turns it into a thundering angry bull of a river fenced in by steep, high basalt cliffs. Right after the falls it goes back to being it's peaceful self. It's about a 15-20 minute drive off Hwy 20 near Island Park. The walk down takes maybe 5 minutes, if that.There's an old inn there too. I don't know if people can stay there or not.

 

Moving Cattle!

We headed out of the lodge at 4:15. Hannah was more awake than I was, and she had a right to be. Today's ride was a birthday ride for her! She was pretty excited to go and was up and ready before I was...amazing, isn't it Dad? =) But I have to say, I didn't sleep the whole ride to the cattle. I enjoyed every minute of it. We were riding in an old Ford pickup with springy door handles and a dashboard of square lights and buttons, a back window plastered with decals from the NRA to Mentos (I think). The cab was full of the rumble of the engine, the guys talking in the front seat, and Hannah talking in the back. It was fun.



You guys would've loved the sunrise. I know some people see them all the time.  I don't, so it was a thrill. We pushed cows in a purposeful, though totally non-stress way. They kept moving and we kept walking along at the back. I learned about the people I was riding with, the generations of work represented along the way, etc. Mel, the outfitter that we were riding with, grew up in this valley. He knows who lived where and what they did. I learned that there were 3 schools in this valley! Not a one now. His friend went to the one I've explored before over on Red Rock Creek. It was just one student and one teacher! Sometimes he caught a ride over to his friend's house on the mail truck and would go to school over there for a week.

Bailey carried me on the ride. She's a beautiful thing. I think maybe only 7 or 8 years old.

Going to the Mailbox and a Sunny Porch

 

The Elk Lake mailbox recieves mail every other day. The mailman makes a long drive in his pickup, that doesn't resemble any mail car I've ever seen, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I had an important piece of mail that needed to go out, so Lerrina let me take an ATV and speed out there, out there meaning 5 miles out there.

 

 

What a gorgeous drive too! I had to make sure the mail got to the mailman and wasn't left overnight, so I waited for him to come. I've never waited by the mailbox before. It was always associated with years gone by, don't know why, but I have. So I waited, and the wind blew, and all was quiet except for the waves of wind flowing through this beautiful valley. A few folks drove by, four in ATVs and a pickup or two. It's always such a question of what to do: look at the people? wave? look busy on my phone? Relating with people while just sitting by the road is not without it's questions.

He finally came and I got my stuff sent out. On my way back I was looking around so much I almost ran into an ATV full of people. I looked just in time to see them sidehilling up the gravel bank on the side of the road. Wew! Missed! Thanks to them. Yes, pardon me, crazy woman driver here!

Oh so pretty! This morning as I got back from my jog (I won't tell you how long it was because "jog" can sound so athletic until the distance part is revealed) I just stood a minute looking out the window at the sunny porch. How I love to just look at it.