Its All About the Weather!

Hiker enjoying a walk on Sun Point Trail - St Mary's Lake

"Sweet days of summer the jasmines in bloom, July is dressed up and playing her tune.....Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind."  Seals and Crofts

SNOW in May - traveling to Kalispell, MT

It's almost July and I am still wearing fleece and wool slippers.  Last week I finally gave up, I got so cold, that I turned on the electric heater in my basement grotto.  My housemates long for summer.  They wish for the bone-warming sun of the Midwest and South..places most of us hale from.  They yearn with every fiber of their being for the heat-filled days and the rivulets of sweat running from their forehead, dripping off their noses that typify July and August.  At this point in our Montana summer, they sit engulfed in blankets on the porch staring into space imagining the oppressive humidity, roiling clouds and tornado warnings, rain and rainbows of typical summers in the center of the country.  All of us throw on short pants when the temps rise above 65 degrees and also, out come the flip flops.  We stand in the sun wishing for tans when the clouds finally part.

Logan's Pass - June 25, 2013

I consider that a summer like that will never arrive here in the north country.  This land will not see those things except for during a small window of the year and even then it will not be the same.  I no longer worry about the lack of tornado sirens in the hinterlands where I live.  Yes we've had thunder, thunder snow, rainbows, rain and lightening, even had some wind but not humidity or heat.  Those 2 things together for me hallmark summer along with LONG days of sunshine, light and heat.  Now, there are some crazy long days here.  The sky starts getting light around about 4:30 AM and gets dark again about 10:30 PM give or take a few minutes each day.  

View of St Mary's Lake as sun sets on cloudy night about 8 PM

Summer here in Montana will be moments of heat and sun and big sky clouds.  I've heard that someday soon the rain will stop and we'll have some endlessly beautiful, sunny, warm days.  But they'll be followed by cool nights full of fleece and wool socks.  That I do not mind.  It'll be a summer like I've never seen before; nights of 37-ish degrees followed by 70's or maybe 80's without humidity so we'll dry up during the day like mummies without sunscreen.  Lord the wrinkles but I've got all my favorite hats.  These warm days will continue to be filled with wildflowers covering rocky outcroppings in a proliferation of color.  Life holding on by the roots, showing us that beauty is constant and tenacious. 

Life clings and thrives on a rocky outcropping

These wildflowers are hardy.  They are able to handle the cold nights, the snow within days of blooming, the heat, the short season, the high alpine meadow winds and storms.  They release clouds of seeds and fuzzy things my friend calls, puhk, I think, which makes you sneeze and your eyes water.  All so that they can assure the new will arrive next year and the year after in an endless cycle of enduring beauty.  They are ache-ingly stunning, cascading over the rock faces towards the open air, open water, open sky....all of them last many weeks until they start to fade with the approaching winter.  Two to three short months is all these tough plants have to complete this process.  It seems to me that the mountains laugh as all this life bursts forth from every crevice that can hold dirt. They exalt at the eagles who raise their young from perches on their heights and the sky stretches above is all like a canopy that fills with sunshine and pollen.  What a summer display.

Sometimes death

But my housemates wish in vain for what they have known.  I, instead, am trying to embrace the fullness of what is and in this hug, find all the joy that is reflected around me as this place fulfills the natural cycle we are all part of...nature renewing itself as best it can.  

Blanket Flowers beginning to bloom

Thus, standing on the edge of a high mountain lake, eyes drinking in the greens, blues, purples, whites and yellows of a Monet canvas on a beautiful day, wind blowing briskly through my hair, I laugh into the wind and think....dang do I love this country.

 

St Mary's Lake - View of Citadel Mountain?