Canyon Ferry Area - April 2015

John, Moira and I took a road trip to Townsend and then around Canyon Ferry Lake.  It was just a little scouting trip, but we did find a couple of neat areas for pictures!  

St. Joseph's Catholic Mission Church was one of them.  Originally built about two miles away to serve the people of the little town of Canton, it was moved when the town was destroyed by the rising Canyon Ferry reservoir in 1952.

The site includes some other artifacts from the area, including this wagon and saddle.

Further along the landscape between the mountains to the northeast and the lake becomes more rugged and fields give way to range land for cattle.

Old farm implements molder in a landscape iconic of the American West...

  

And if you venture up one of the narrow, rocky gulches to the northeast you may see people engaged in rock climbing...or you may just see this!

Winter Travel - November 2014

November saw a bit of snow!  After one fall we had enough of a cold snap that the fog would boil up off of the Missouri in the mornings and coat everything along the river's banks in thick hoarfrost.  I was fortunate enough to be making a trip back up to Havre to try to help get the family ready to move during one of these cold snaps.  I pulled over at Cascade south of Great Falls just as the fog was clearing.   The surface of the river was as calm and still as it could possibly be...

...and frost coated everything!

The geese were taking off and landing in huge flocks!

And the cottonwoods were majestic in their bejeweled winter raiment!

North of Great Falls I stopped in at Fort Benton, which has always been a favorite stop for our family!  The Missouri was bearing ice in slow, stately rafts upon a mirror-clear surface and nearly perfect bridge reflection!

And even the icicles wore hoarfrost!

As did the holiday lights...

And the bushes!

Views From My First Trip Up Mount Helena!

November of 2014 saw me in Helena with a new job, trying to find a place to rent so I could move the family.  I did find time for a little hiking, though!  Mount Helena overlooks the Montana State Capitol and from its heights you can see the Cathedral...

...and the capitol building.

This little body of water is Spring Meadow Lake, which actually attracts a surprisingly large amount of traffic.  People swim and fish there and it gets plenty of visits from the local schools for field trips.

The light through the trees on the trail was amazing!

And as you get toward the top the views get more and more spectacular!

And the reward for making it all the way is more than a little bit satisfying!  This is the view north.  Fort Harrison is to the left, downtown and the capitol are to the right.

Halloween - 2014

Liam decided in 2014 that he was too old to trick-or-treat, so Jack and Moira were the only one's we did costumes for.  Jackson was Slenderman and Moira was a character from the Witch's House video game named Ellen.  

We set up some cool Slenderman shots...

And took some pictures together.

Texture detail on Moira's makeup...

Had to get that last minute light through the car port!

Plants and Critters - 2014

2014 was an incredibly busy year!  I finished nursing school...job-hunted twice, and ultimately moved my family south from the Hi-Line to the state capitol of Helena.  It didn't leave a whole lot of time for exploring and photographing!  I did get a couple of shots that, while not being true macros, have that in-close feel! 

A Storm Blew Through It...

In May of 2014 we had an absolutely gorgeous storm roll through Havre.  The light sure cooperated!  The view looking south...

I managed to capture a lightning strike over the neighbor's house to the East...

Beautiful mammatus formations developed!

I don't know whether Lucy was admiring the view, or whether she was hearing and smelling the other neighborhood dogs!