Pictures!

The rain of the last few weeks have managed to produce some really amazing colors of green in the forest. These are some surreal colors and remind me of the greens from LOTR. It is simply beautiful but, I am sure you have enough with words and want to see some pictures! I haven't taken too many yet because I have been pretty much home bound but here are a few from these last few weeks.

These first four pictures are from May 22. It snowed and it snowed for several days off and on. I had thought I was going to miss the snows for this year but Yellowstone has had a few surprises for us!

But now I shall shut up and give you the promised pictures.

We had to close the road a few times due to snow on Sylvan Pass. People were not exactly happy about that but then, as I said-mountains breed their own weather.
And this is me, proof that I was in the middle of all this wonderful snow.
The mountain to the north of us. Just last summer that was filled with smoke from the Castle Fire.
And I love this snow line. You can tell where there was precipitation but one point is cold enough for snow and just below it is all rain.

And this is the first bison in the meadow. As you can tell the green shoots are just now coming up in this picture. Our meadow has yet to turn into marsh here but it is coming.
Memorial Day Dennis raised a new flag. Our old one was two years old, smelled funny and shall be given a proper send off.
And I love how these low lying clouds just sit there about the mountain. This happens whenever it rains. Just a beautiful effect.
And this is the tributary/cascade/whatever that had the mud flow.
same tributary, other side
and this is the meadow where it all runs into.
Ephemeral cascades and waterfalls form during the spring melt and when the rains fall.
An ephemeral water fall.
And the Shoshone River that is right next to us. It got high.
really high.
and it ran very fast!
and here is the beginning of our meadow/marsh
And this is the path that leads home. And no there are no winnows in there.
These crows were around for several days eating all the large, fat, exposed worms.
And one day I am at home and Coops just starts woofing so I decide to let her out to see what was amiss and there were 4 huge bull bison in the area. I took the following pics from the front door. And yes mark... I was not always inside the screen door when I took these but I did make sure I was far enough away. I was being careful.


















Coops had to go to this spot and smell it.




On Monday we had a cookout and it proved to be a bright and beautiful day.
There were a few snacks before the grub came one but the following takes the cake.
There are several people of Norwegian decent who are living at the east gate now and they all appreciated this. If you want to know what it means you need to ask Merethe. I have been told that it is the S word.

Anyway that is all for now. I am hoping to go into Billings in a few weeks to go to Costco. But DC is on sale, 24 pack of DC for $5 at wal-mart right now. I am SO stocking up! You really can't beat that price. You can't.