June 2022

Lumber Town
Lincoln, Montana
2022

Part of a little village carved from a tree stump by Danish artist Jorn Ronnau at the Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild outdoor sculpture park.

Bare Tree #87
Jefferson City, Montana
2022

Wasting Away
Jefferson City, Montana
2022

Watching the Sky With a Worried Eye
Jefferson City, Montana
2022

The Collectors #3
Jefferson City, Montana
2022

The Collectors #2
Jefferson City, Montana
2022

The Collectors #1
Jefferson City, Montana
2022

We’ve been getting a lot of rain in our area the couple of weeks, two inches in two days up at our cabin. That’s quite remarkable given Bozeman only gets 20″ of precipitation a year on average. The plants are happy for it as are we–the clouds may have been gray and gloomy but that’s way better than being gray and threatening from the wildland fire smoke that was so pervasive much of last summer. We may still get to the smoky season again this summer but every day it rains is one day that’s not going to happen (unless some state west of here sends smoke from their fires, which is generally the case given the prevailing winds in the region).

Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Bozeman, Montana
2022

An early bit of wishful thinking, or perhaps simple naivety, on a sign from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trouble on the Horizon
Little Utah, Montana
2022

Fortunately, the horizon is where this storm stayed as I was several miles down a dusty dirt two-track road that I imagine would have become a muddy, likely impassable, quagmire in the presence of rain. I liked the area a lot but was not prepared to spend several more days there waiting for things to dry out.

The Mayor of Little Utah
Little Utah, Montana
2022

That lone juniper tree isn’t totally alone, besides the occasional visitor such as myself. I call the raven the mayor of Little Utah because it sure seemed to be telling me the rules of the place as it soared repeatedly overhead, squawking commands I couldn’t quite understand.