Field Studies #2
Bozeman, Montana
2021

Field Studies #1
Bozeman, Montana
2021

One of my regular walking routes from our house in Bozeman takes me to a nature preserve that is surrounded mostly by wheat fields. The preserve itself is the main attraction to me but the surrounding fields have their appeal as well. I’ve posted photographs of some of the resident fence posts before, so this and the next couple of posts may look familiar to a degree. But revisiting the same subject in different, light, from a different angle, and/or a different frame of mind is a useful exercise for photographers. Some results may look essentially the same as previous images while others quite a bit different.

Views From the Pond #35
Bozeman, Montana
2021

A wider view of the upper pond.

Views From the Pond #34
Bozeman, Montana
2021

We actually have two ponds on our property, which we refer to as the lower pond and the upper pond for, well, obvious reasons. The lower pond is older, smaller and more intimate feeling than the upper pond which is newer and bigger and more open. It’s the lower pond that has been featured in my Views From the Pond series of images. So my big dilemma today has been to decide if I should allow photos from the upper pond in this series. After all, the title is “views from THE pond” implying they are all of a single specific pond,  not “views from A pond” which would seem to allow photographs from any pond. In defiance of the grammatical issue, I’ve decide to allow images from either of our pond in the series. I still don’t feel 100% comfortable with this decision, but hey, if that’s the worst quandary I find myself in today I’ll be doing good.

Views From the Pond #33
Bozeman, Montana
2021

Hoarfrost so thick it appears more menacing than razor wire.

Diversity #1
Bozeman, Montana
2021

Tumbleweed Still Life
Bozeman, Montana
2021

If you have good memory, you might remember a POTD from back in 2017 featuring these same baskets and tumbleweeds. At the time though it was located on the other end of the ledge it’s sitting on, thus catching evening light instead of the morning light as in this shot.

Snow Covered Peaks
Bozeman, Montana
2021

After taking yesterday’s POTD photo and then looking over at this fencing, I couldn’t help but see the similarity between the two scenes.

Storm Coming
Bozeman, Montana
2021

Most of the storms at our mountain house come from the northwest. The Bridger Mountains in that direction do cause a good deal of the snow to fall on it’s lee side before it gets to us. That’s something I’ve been quite thankful for in the past, at least whenever I was trying to keep our road clear of snow. Now that we spend most of the winter weather in town though, I’d be fine with it piling up to its heart’s content as that would make for a lusher, greener summer.

Views From the Pond #32
Bozeman, Montana
2021

This ruffed grouse was not too concerned to have me sharing some time with it around the pond, although it did eventually saunter off slowly.