The Colors of Montana (Yes, Again!)

 My son has this calendar filled with pictures of gleaming semi trucks and their various trailers.  The trucks are staged in equally gleaming locations and perfectly backlit.  I occasionally look at it with him and think to myself:  what kind of photographer aspires to take still life pictures of trucks?

 Then, as I was looking though my picture collection of the last month, I had a slight twinge of guilt at that thought.  Because if I think it's odd to take pictures of trucks, isn't it just as odd take pictures of farm equipment?  Probably so.

 In my defense, however, I am addicted to the colors of Montana and can't resist trying to capture the beauty for eternity.  Harvesting equipment making the rounds of our fields on a dusty summer evening is a treat for all the senses:  the sound of the custom harvesters we've hired to help us get our winter wheat  harvested, the wispy clouds in front of the setting sun casting a beautiful glow, the taste of a handful of crunchy freshly harvested wheat, and the smell of clover from a neighboring hay field.

 For me, though, the most important of these sensory experiences is seeing the colors. 
 Oh, Montana, how I love your colors!  I fell in love with them on the first evening as I was driving across the state looking at the sun setting on the Crazy Mountains and the love affair has yet to falter.  The warm brown of the wheat kernels, the tired black of the truck that hauls them. 

Throw in some Big Sky and magic happens.  I was sitting outside of the barn a few weeks ago looking west and Danish Cowboy drove up.   He asked me what I was doing.  "Looking at the sunset, looking at the colors."  He agreed that it was lovely.  I told him that we were lucky to live where we do, even though it is a hard life sometimes.  "The luckiest family on earth,"  I said.  He agreed to that sentiment as well.