I do so love this time of year. The weather is beautiful, blue skies and cool breezes and crisp morning air, and the trees turning brilliant golds and oranges and reds. All the colors seem so vivid, and they surround me, dazzling my vision. I'm sitting in my apartment right now with the windows closed and the doors open, and I can see golden, green and brown leaves shivering in the sunlight out the front door, and green leaves and blue sky out the back door, and a pleasantly cool breeze flowing through the house. Mmm.
Life is good, so good. I have time to eat good food, spend time with the people I love, visit beautiful places, write, dream, sleep, cuddle with my cat, drink tea, laugh, play games, walk beneath the stars, do yoga, dance . . . I am enjoying this time. I know that eventually I will have to, once again, find gainful employment, that this idyll cannot last indefinitely--but I'm certainly enjoying it while it does!
A few pictures from the past few weeks:
Views of the Mission mountains from the Blue Mountain trail:
An autumn trail at Blue Mountain:
Greg eating breakfast by the flowers we bought at the Hamilton farmer's market:
Um, right, we were just packing for a weekend . . . but really, we needed all of it!
A hike up to Glen Lakes to see the larches changing color (one of Greg's yearly rituals):
Gorgeous golden larches at their larchiest!
. . . just a tad twitterpated . . .
The Glen Lakes area burned two years ago:
Ponderosa pine root:
Sunset view of the Bitterroot Valley:
Beth and Britta are back in town! All of us are gloriously unemployed and enjoying ourselves immensely. Last week we spent a day laying out in the sun, reading and writing and relaxing:
Britta catching some rays:
ALL of us came out on the roof to sprawl in the sun:
Last weekend Greg, Beth, Britta and I went down to Hamilton and spent a few marvelously relaxing days at Greg's parents' house.
My wonderfully (and perpetually) goofy Greg:
Bethie and I, looking stunningly gorgeous, as always:
We spent Friday hiking up Blodgett Canyon:
. . . and it rained on us, twice. Fortunately Beth and Britta were well-equipped with their $1 rain ponchos. Beware the poncho monster!
Blodgett Creek:
A little garter snake we found by the trail (who knew they had such beautiful shades of red and orange?):
Fall colors bursting forth:
Indigo blue--a rare color to find in nature! A bead berry (I think!) hidden among the leaves:
My compadres smirking at two 'macho' hiker guys sporting bear bells. Hee! (Whoops, they heard us mocking them and silenced the bells while they walked past us. Hee! again.)
Oh, Montana, how I love thee! Oh, Montana in autumn, how beautiful thou art!
Mmm.
