Early Spring in Yellowstone

 I keep a very relaxed nature journal .... by that I mean some pages are careful, some are quick sketches, often I make a mess, and even more often I don't get my pages finished in a timely fashion.  The weather here has been dreary and yet spring is in the air.  What better way to enjoy it than by taking advantage of a couple wet days to finish these pages from April 2019.  

We arrived in Gardiner and found our cabin was locked!  The hosts were attending a wedding out of town and forgot to leave our cabin open or give a key to the neighbors. ... and I had just picked up about $200 of fresh groceries in Bozeman.  Much to our good fortune we are good friends with both next door cabin neighbors.  One filled his refrigerator with our groceries and the other got on the phone and found us a lovely spot five miles out of town.  That night it snowed ... and in the morning this magpie greeted us.  

Late the next day we got in our own cabin and the trip really began.  Here are my journal pages from the first week.  

Winter still lingers in Yellowstone in mid April  .. sometimes a lot of winter.  I grew up in snowy Wisconsin and look forward to a taste of winter when we arrive.

Redtailed hawks are forming their territories and sunny exposed locations have often lost their snow.

Spring came early in 2019 ... Blacktail Ponds had lots of open water.  Often it is still frozen.

These pen and ink sketches were finished on location.  The other pages were started on location, but I just added most of the paint.