(The Firehole)

(The Gibbon flowing through Gibbon Meadow.)

(The Madison)

It seems right that of all the rivers that pass through the park, the three I love best are linked not just by my personal history but by geography: at the confluence of the Gibbon and the Firehole, the Madison is born. The Madison is born and the Gibbon and the Firehole cease to exist. Their waters continue to flow between the banks of the Madison, but as rivers in their own right they have vanished. It’s a cruel thing that so completely obliterates its creators but that is the way of rivers. They fill their banks and run downstream until they too are subsumed by a larger river. The Madison runs for just over 180 miles until it meets up with the Jefferson and the Gallatin to form the Missouri; there at Three Forks the Madison vanishes from the map. Only the Missouri remains. The Missouri flows to the Mississippi. The Mississippi runs to the sea.

So it goes with rivers. They are there, and then they are gone, and yet they are not. Perhaps that is why I love them. They teach me the thing I most need to learn.

What’s your true north, and why do you think that is?

Boychen and I spent the morning moving more rocks, bringing some dead plants to the Mist (I don’t know the English word for this: it’s where my brother-in-law dumps the old straw after he mucks out the horses’ stalls), and wandering around the farm. We blew soap bubbles and ate our morning snack outside in the sun, sitting on the rock wall my husband sat on when he was a boy.

To bring the rocks around to the rock pile, we’ve traded in the wheelbarrow for something with a little more horsepower:

Now if we could use this, we’d be done in no time:

* * *

About a week ago, I noticed that the moths had returned, beating against my kitchen window as I stood at the sink rinsing off the last of the dishes. Today I noticed that the butterflies, too, have returned.

* * *

While Boychen took his afternoon nap, the Small Boy (who is no longer so small and who will need a new pseudonym soon) and I played hockey in the driveway.

Between periods, he planted sunflowers.

* * *

And there was this:

and this (can you believe that sky?):

and this:

* * *

Yes, a person can breathe up there.