No picture can do the view justice. There is something magical about driving towards a wall of mountains to run as far north and south as far as you can see. This time of year with the snow accenting every peak, cut and slope it is utterly breath-taking.
Yesterday, I drove over Rodgers Pass and down out of the mountains. My brother and I went for a drive about, over dirt roads that we have been driving since we were teenagers. The winder was sharp, nearly impossible to look into and made it feel less than pleasant, but I stopped to take a few pictures to share this amazing landscape.
Fort Shaw Butte
Off to the west… the Rocky Mountains
Creek where the Brown Trout spawn
Square Butte 
The frozen Sun River
Today as I was out splitting wood all I could think about was how different the yard will be by next winter. If the snow doesn’t get to deep it might well transform before spring. Right now it is a dense tangle of trees that even after pulling out branches and clearing the dead ones from the trunks as high as I could reach, it is still nearly impossible to navigate.
If all of this was cleared out the little cabin would bask in the sun nearly all day in the winter. For now it gets dappled patterns of light and shadow. The land here is nearly perfectly set up for a small pond to go in,with garden beds on the slope below and up the south east facing slope that rises up from the ‘front yard’
Its a mess now but I can see the garden beds, I can almost hear the chickens that will be ordered the day I get the coop built. It will be set back into the hill, nice a snug; a bear proof earth ship for the ladies.
It will be a happy day when the yard stretches out from the rocky space carved out of the mountain for the cabin to it. For now I spend my afternoons with an axe in hand, running over plans in my head. As soon as there is a day warm enough to sit outside to get the topography map going I will be drawing up the detailed plans.
Two Ravens Garden and Permaculture Site 