Posts from the ‘Front Porch Musings’ category

A good fire

WoodstoveWe have had rain off and on, it’s cool and crisp and last night rained all night and continues this morning.  All fire restrictions were lifted the beginning of this week.  The time was right – first fall fire in the woodstove!  A bit odd this year after all of the scare of fire during the summer.

But, suddenly the weather forecast is much cooler, much wetter and snow levels are dropping with each front.  The leaves are turning on the aspen and birch but the larch pine are still green – usually the color here peaks about mid-October.  No fire-reds or oranges here like the east but the brilliant blaze of yellow and gold mixed with the ever green is still beautiful.

There is usually not much time between the end of the color and the first snow – every year I’ve lived in Montana (since Feb ’94) it has at least flurried on Halloween.  And often it gets very cold and we get a first heavy snow in early November.  So, yesterday was spent putting away mower and trimmer and getting the snowblower ready to go.  Garden and lawn stuff to the rear – shovels and snowblower to the fore.  In the next couple of weeks it will be time to put the driveway edge markers in place – so much easier when you can see the edge of the driveway :) !

The change of seasons is not subtle in Montana.  We seem to always blast from one into the next.  The summer-fall transition is my favorite as I’m never sorry to leave the heat of summer behind.  The last several weeks of balmy days and lots of sunshine have been wonderful.   Now we’ll start being cold and damp and I always say that it feels colder during this first cold, wet time then in the dead of winter as I adjust to different temps and humidity – the fire feels pretty good!

to be good and happy today

“We know nothing of tomorrow; our business is to be good and happy today”. –Sydney Smith

I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmingly thankful…for everything – for the laughter, the joy, the beauty of my days as well as for the challenges, sorrows and disappointments – for everything!  It is all part of my life and I’m grateful for all of it. 

If life were one smooth, flat ride the view would be lousy – and boring!!  It takes a couple of trips to the valley floor to really appreciate the climb up and the beauty of the grand mountain view.  And it is on those tumbles down that we often learn who we are, what we are made of, our strengths and weaknesses – and what we don’t want or who we don’t want to be which helps to clarify what we DO want.

A favorite mystery series I read features Amelia Peabody Emerson, wife of a famous Egyptologist and no slouch herself in that department.  It is a fun romp of the Errol Flynn sort with the good guys always coming out on top.  Amelia’s catch line when things are on the challenging side is biblical:  the last line of Matthew  6:34: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (King James Version).  The more current translation is “Each day has enough trouble of it’s own”  – but the first lines are “Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself”.  Sometimes, when I find myself distracted by fretting about some future worry I picture Amelia and say the words and laugh – because, it is true and – “our business is to be good and happy today”!

And for today’s “illustration” – this photo is Karl on the right and Sparky, an 11 month old Border Collie belonging to Bob and Inez Love.  Bob logged my property this spring and Sparky was normally along.  Sparky and Karl bonded immediately and played, wrestled, chased and napped together.  I don’t claim to know what really goes on in their little doggie brains but it seems pretty clear that they do not worry about any tomorrows.

Sparky and Karl

Wait till the moon is full


Once upon a time in the dark of the moon there was a little raccoon.  He lived down in a big warm chestnut tree with his mother who was also a raccoon.  – the opening line to the children’s book “Wait till the moon is full” by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams who is most famous for illustrating the Laura Ingalls books.   

“Wait till the moon is full” was a favorite of mine as a child and I think also of my mother and grandmother who read it to me – often! I can remember being in the car with my grandmother Ruth and seeing the moon – especially if it was a barely visible curve and saying the line from the book, the mother raccoon telling the little raccoon something like, “the moon is as thin as a sliver of a raccoon’s ear. Wait, Wait till the moon is full”.  I don’t remember how the other phases were described but I never see a sliver of a moon without hearing – in my grandmother’s voice – “thin as a sliver of a raccoon’s ear”.

You see, the little raccoon wanted to “go out in the night – to know an owl, to see if the moon is a rabbit, and to find out how dark is the dark.  But his mother said, “Wait, Wait till the moon is full.” So the little raccoon waited and wondered, while the moon got bigger and bigger and bigger.  Until at last, on a very special evening, the moon was full”. 

I don’t know if my fascination with being up and sometimes outside in the night is because of the book or if I loved the book because I loved the night.   My interest is not in seeing the moon or the stars up close or even knowing the constellations although I like seeing the very familiar ones: the big and little dipper, Orion’s cross, sometimes I can pick out Casseopia.  It is more like the night is a comforting presence – never the same – sometimes starless, sometimes so full of stars that it is nearly overwhelming to think of the vastness of the universe… to lie on the ground, in this dark, dark place with no artificial light to block the sky – on a clear night and see the Milky Way and the “billions and billions” of stars and know that the ones I can see are just a few of how many there are.  Well…that kind of makes the affairs of the day on planet earth seem just a bit inconsequential!

so…- what’s out there? is there an end somewhere or somewhen? and really, why are We – Here in this part of  wherever and whenever. Mysteries for another time of existence.

Tonight, the moon is full.

there’s snow on them thar hills…

Road HomeI woke in the night 2 nights ago and heard rain – a good sound considering the fires and dryness of this area.  And it was a nice gentle rain so good moisture.

Yesterday afternoon, I was driving in to town (Kalispell) – blue skies, puffy white clouds and belatedly I noticed – SNOW on the mountain tops!  It is high – probably 3500-4000 feet higher than my home and a bit higher than that from the valley floor, but beautiful.  Mountain tops are made to have snow on them…

On the way to town, I stopped in Somers, MT – a little town that lives on the northwest border of Flathead Lake.  There is a bit of an historic railroad trail that Karl and I walk.  It’s on the way to the grocery I prefer.  There is a restaurant along the trail and they have a garden to grow their own veg and herbs.  The sunflowers below are from that garden – the lake and mountain view from along that trail.

Sunflowers

Lake

Grandfather Pine

Ponderosa CoupleThe pine tree I was in front of in yesterday’s post is beautiful and one of about 10 that live in front of my house.

But guarding the northwest corner of my property are 2 very old, very beautiful Ponderosa Pines.  My friend, Kris, who looked at the property for me when I was in Michigan went on and on about the “grandfather” pine on the property corner – that it was worth buying the property for that tree. 

“He” is a beauty – the photos cannot capture the size, the feeling of power and longevity – the patriarch…  But equally beautiful and interesting is a smaller tree to the right.  It is a bit hard to see in the photo but it is to the far right in the upper left photo – smaller, but same reddish-brown bark.  I say that this is a husband and wife pair – the long married couple standing side-by-side against all nature has to throw at them.  And they are gatekeepers – there is a game trail that passes right between them. 

Bob Love, Confluence Timber, who logged the property estimates that the large tree is over 200 years old – maybe 250.  That is incredible to me to think that this tree has lived through 4 or 5 generations of humans.  Bob guesses that the only reason the tree was still standing, i.e. not cut for timber by someone – was that it was so close to the property boundaries that no one knew exactly whose it was.  So… he belongs to no one…

There are 2 slash marks on the trunk at about my eye level.  Bob says the marks are Grizzly marks – Grizzlies use the Ponderosa to mark their territory and warn other Griz off.  I like to think that this place is “guarded” by a Griz and the trees…

Griz Mark

Rainy day Monday

RaincoatRain – finally!!  It has been cooler and fall-like but we really needed some rain to put a final end to fire season.  Today’s rain will not put everything out but it is supposed to continue through the week and hopefully things will get damp enough to be rid of smoke for good.  Skies have been mostly clear, but when a breeze kicks up, the sky gets hazy and smoke seeps into the valley.

The leaves are starting to turn, the sun is more southerly, no frost yet but we have been close a few nights. 

As grumpy as everyone was during the heat and smoke – we are now kind of “over the top” happy.  Everyone saying “What a beautiful day!” all over the place.

Let Fall begin!