A Montana Journal

  A Montana Journal, ca September 2020   I am here in these high places again. Me and Ol’ Black Tahoe, my trusted steed, have made way up the Lost Horse trail, above the clouds, and to the Twin Lakes. I am alone here this morning, but for the living things what surround me, the wild things what make their home here, and the One what created us all. There is harmony in the stillness of this mountainous place. Wind and water and trembling leaves make no sound that does not fill a person but with comfort and calm. Once again gifts of His beauty are offered for me alone to behold. And so it come to mind that the caring spirit what guides all the worlds and deigns to direct even my lowly steps has been, and is still, more kind to me than I surely deserve. And I wonder why that should be.  I have heard that sweet and bitter water won’t be had from the same well. Yet my own living days would certain speak, and quite uncomfortably, contrary to that. I have been the reckless aut...

A Montana Journal, ca July 2020 The air was a fine 48-degree and the dark morning sky cloudless and speckled with a swarm of stars as we lit off north through the valley. It were quite the impressive lightshow to precede sun’s participation in the day coming. Me and Ol’ Black Tahoe, my trusted steed, was heading up toward the Hellgate and then taking westerly track to the settlement of Superior. The path ahead was one I’d never afore traveled, which would regularly be reason enough to make the trip. Yet as calm is a commodity hard to come by these days, I was hoping there’d be ample trail to ride in high solitude to secure a small portion of that. After our arrival at Superior, we took off south and also heavenward into the Clearwater. The North Fork of the Clearwater River rambles on through this territory and we aimed to find and follow it far as fortitude would allow. We come into these mountains making our way for many a mile along the Trout Creek, so we knew we was on proper cours...

A Montana Journal, ca March 2020 We was down on river’s edge a few days past, me and Ol’ Black Tahoe, my trusted steed. It were a just little spit of water off the main flow of the Bitterroot near to settlement of Victor. Big enough, tho, and deep in places, to hold some acceptable trout. Off in some field close by I heard me the croaking rasp of a Sandhill Crane. They come back to the valley every year about this time to make their babies and push on with life. I have confidence that old bird is not one bit concerned with the current doings of us peoples. It is just being. And there so is life itself, what keeps trundling onward in its labor to continue its own existence. These days seem to find us all working plentiful hard for this life thing. Staying far one from another. Steering clear. Holed up and lonely. And so it should be, I reckon. A lot of us has given it up already. Not by choice, but by living’s design. It is a sadness all around, and surely more so for them wha...

A Montana Journal, February, ca 2020 There was deep trepidation in them high mountains this day, and, soon coming, plentiful pain. As yours truly embarked on new and novel adventure – cross-country skiing. Never before here on the green side of my mortal existence had I contemplated the strapping on of thin wood planks to foot and sliding across snowy cover. But I have a friend, name of Bill, who thought I might enjoy giving this thing a go. I recollect when friend Bill introduced me to elk hunting. Tho toting no long-gun nor pistol myself, I trailed with him up savagely vertical ascent covering some twenty-and-five-mile of rugged mountainsides into them high forests, until lungs come to screaming for air and body was in agony from climb. It weren’t ‘til after this torturous trek I come to discover friend Bill must be a stranger to the truth, as he related we’d only hiked along old dirt road two maybe three mile at best. Based on bodily suffering endured by yours truly, I re...

A Montana Journal, January, ca. 2020 The snow is falling in this mountain valley. They’s saying we’ll have our full share of it down here below, more in them high places. Me and Ol’ Black Tahoe, my trusted steed, is out and in it. I am grateful my good companion is of heavy breed and stands steady on these icy trails. We have clung to many a wintry path in these northern territories and he has not once lost purchase. This cold, grey day seems fitting for the task ahead. Today I ride, and without haste, to say farewell to an old woman who had been on a different trail. The one what leads through the veil, and from this being into the next. She died at Christmastime. I was humbled to have been along side her, from time to time, as she journeyed onward these past months. As I knew her, she was gentle of heart, kind in spirit. She would tell me her stories and ask me for mine. She was in the healing profession, and lived her lifetime caring for others. And is now, I am confident...