That girl and I spent Monday
at the cabin. While there, I completed
my “homemade” kitchen light (see the photograph below). That girl finished installing blinds on a
window and prepared for some extended stays this summer.
After finishing all of
that early in the afternoon, we drove the Forest Service road up into the high
stack of mountains above our little valley.
The road soon turned rugged and impassable to all but four-wheel-drive
vehicles. I switched my truck into
four-wheel-drive and crawled up the flanks of the Continental Divide—up the
mountains through shattered remnants of blow-down trees that had slashed across
the road and only recently been cleared by crews with chainsaws.
At the top, we walked to
the edge of a clearing to take in the snowcapped mountains across the Blackfoot
Valley.
With my truck in
four-low, we trickled back down through cuts in the mountain stone, pine
forests, green grass, and wildflowers.
Wildflowers are the
thing. I have trouble driving past
them. I have an innate need to stop for
a closer look. That girl and I must have
stopped well over a dozen times so we could scramble from the truck and poke at
the wildflowers. Photographing flowers
is among my favorite pastimes.
Posted are a couple photographs
of blue virgin’s bower. Though not as
showy as some flowers, they have a striking shape. They range in the mountain chains extending
from New Mexico to Montana. Also posted
is a mixed patch of lupine and paintbrush, and, last but not least, a
fairyslipper orchid. Though not much
larger than your thumbnail, fairyslippers are ever a show-stopper.
--Mitchell
Hegman
Love your self-designed cabin kitchen light. I didn't know that there are wild orchids in Montana. Maybe they are "cousins" of the wild bamboo orchids that can be commonly found by the roadside on the Big Island of Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteWe also have ladyslippers, an larger orchid that really does look like slippers. I have a few of those right outside my cabin door.
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