Montana's official nickname is The Treasure State, named once upon a statehood  for its abundant mineral resources.  These days however, the treasure I am finding most precious is February sunshine.  While you can't turn it into spoons or rings or copper piping, its value is inestimable.  The west side of the Divide can be a little short on this decided non-commodity and Missoula is nearly notorious for its cloudy inversion - the valley filling up with a low-lying and long-lingering cloud layer.  But when the sun does come out - oh glorious!  Yesterday was one of those days.  My three kiddos and I bundled up, but not enough, (optimism out-weighing experience) and met some friends at Maclay Flat.  Thaw was all about us -- and inside us, I think.  We strolled along the path, now packed snow, now melty mud, while the boys galloped off like animals let out of a cage.  They were on one side of us scrambling through the brush at the bottom of a cottonwood stand, they were on the other side of us slinging pine cones dropped by an obliging ponderosa, they were cutting switches from willows, they were skipping rocks in the river. They were being Children-Out-of-Doors with muddy, cold fingers and red noses. 

In addition to the sunshine, here's what the Treasure State yielded up to us: two red tail hawks wheeling high; one great blue heron silently startling at our approach, pumping those long wings on its way down river; the blaring calls of Canada geese flapping low along the river, their reflections racing with them; scores of stones skipped (or not); a haunting pile of downy feathers where some bird met a hunting raptor; one butte rising above an elbow of the river; and the russet-color of the willow breaks.  A good haul, I'd say, for us miners of such a lode.