Beauty in Montana

Our weather has been really pretty this time of year.  Not much snow to speak of, maybe 12 inches or so. It gets very slippery though, as at night it gets very cold.   The prettiest part is the sun shines through the trees. And at night the moon reflects off the white snow, making light it seems, where I hardly need a flashlight... The road in the picture below, is usually a sheet of ice, many times people drive too fast and don't have 4x4 and end up in the ditch on either side...I love the pink sunny reflection here...so bright and pretty..This is how it is most days of winter, bright cheery skies, with no grey clouds hanging over us, like in Oregon where we came from.. We definitely prefer this to the rain and gloom!  As you can see in the picture to the left..I think the doggies like it too...They are amazed at the beauty of the changing seasons too!

We even noticed weird people ALREADY ice fishing on the Lake, and its BARELY frozen!!! Crazy guys!!!!  With their little huts and fires and vehicles!!!! Are you crazy??? We still can't believe that they are out there already.  The first winter we were here, it was so cold and frigid temperatures that our river(the one in the pic below, that is the Clearwater River, I know hard to believe huh? It was frozen like 2 ft or more of solid ice! Matter of fact, the large rocks you see, were just stuck in the ice, and all you could see was the tops of them, and then it was like marbled ice underneath! Yet there were lots of little parts that weren't frozen and the water was still rushing underneath it, just like in the summer! We even "walked" on the ice in the middle of the river...it was amazing, and we didn't fall either...The summer rolls around and we are playing in it,  riding our tubes down it, and even just sitting in it, for coolness and refreshment and frolicking when its 90 outside and the temp of the water is just perfect.  I haven't even been to the river since the end of September.


 

I can't believe its almost the first of 2012 and we hardly have any snow....the  "longtimers" here , say that we will get it, just not sure when...I was good with the way it is,  a little snow, and a little ice, nothing too much, just a little cold, and frosty..  The other night I took the doggies out  and my nose was cold. Last year I went out and the mucus in my NOSE FROZE!, LOL  Seriously! I pray that it stays away this year.. We also noticed the wild life isn't "going crazy" for storage food. Last year we had deer all over the place and the squirrel was gathering pinecones and stashing them like there was no tomorrow...We haven't seen that this year... Since they don't read almanacs and they don't have the weather channel, G-d must have made some way for them to know when its time to hunker down and get serious, and when its not going to be that bad.. Seems logical to me anyway.