Montana Weather--be careful what you wish for!

The weather finally changed.

I should have written about it sooner.

It seldom fails. Pen a column lamenting the endless days of clear skies and balmy temps, and by the time those words reach print there will be a change.

Just days after writing that column I found myself standing in a cold, steady rain in Livingston watching my grandson in goal for the Park High Rangers soccer team during a Class A State semifinal match against Whitefish.

The Rangers won in a shutout but lost the next week to a very talented Columbia Falls team in the title tilt.

I was at that game, too, nursing a cold I’d picked up in the rain at Livingston.

An old friend warned me after the weather column that I should be careful what I wish for, and he was right. While my longing for cooler weather was satisfied, the accompanying baggage it brought was not. I hadn’t had a cold in years, and that, along with muddy roads kept me out of the field for a few days.

Now it’s cold and snowy with more of the same in the forecast. Bare ground is a thing of the past, at least for the next four or five months.

I write this with confidence that the wintry weather isn’t going to change simply because I wrote about it. The only time that seems to work is with warm weather in the fall, although it works sometimes in the spring, too, if I wait long enough.

It was a long, beautiful, fall if a bit dry.

The clouds of grasshoppers that rose in the dogs’ wake are gone. Soon the ducks will also vanish as what little water remains on the prairie freezes.

Sharptail grouse, scattered across the short grass and sage until now, will start to gather in large flocks, making it increasingly difficult to approach them.

As the temperature drops into single digits and the snow grows deeper, what few pheasants remain, take shelter in the thickest of cattails.

It’s time to take a little more care dressing in the morning. Shirtsleeve hunts are but a memory. Long johns become everyday wear as do gloves and neck gaiters.

The dust is gone, covered by snow and ice, and even the most modest of houses in town give off a bit of a Currier and Ives vibe.

It’s pretty, and the cold temps are invigorating. It’s everything I wished for.

For now.

Give me three or four months and I’m sure I’ll feel differently.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]