Fall Art Walk

Evening last, that girl and I ate dinner in downtown Helena and then strolled through the walking mall to participate in the Fall Art Walk.  A very recent winter impulse left the whole of Helena and especially the mall shawled under fluffy new snow.  Though a bit colder than normal, Last Chance Gulch glowed and sparkled against the cobalt of night—the city lights washing partway up against Mount Helena towering above

We browsed several shops.  At Birds and Beasleys, we found a young woman holding an owl.  I have posted a photograph of the owl, as well as a few other photographs captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.

After leaving the mall at around 8:30 PM, I stopped to fuel the car at the north edge of town.  While standing there alongside the fuel dispenser, I heard a constant hubbub above.  I knocked on the car window and motioned for that girl to step outside.

“Listen to that,” I said while pointing up at the over-bright white canopy immediately above us.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Has to be geese,” I answered.

Just then, a bit over stone’s throw above us, the geese cleared the obstructing canopy looming overtop the car.  They were flapping in a southeasterly direction.  Not hundreds of geese.  Thousands of them.  Thousands in raucous, honking flight, their V patterns joined together and looking like a massive blanket patterned with fish scales being drawn overtop us.

That girl and I stood there in awe as the geese flew over and then slowly dissolved into the darkness again.

I have never in my life seen so many geese at once.

Mitchell Hegman