Springhill, Montana, United States
Saturday was such an amazingly beautiful day that I was
hating myself for spending much of it at home in the morning and then at the
gym in the early afternoon. I have to
get out and make the best of the day! With a hike with friends planned for the
following day and dinner plans in Livingston that evening, an outdoorsy
activity like a hike wasn’t a realistic option. Then the answer came to me.
While on Sacajawea Peak on Thursday I noticed some bright
yellow fields in the Gallatin Valley north of Bozeman and east of Belgrade.
Canola is an oilseed crop with a plant covered for an extended period of time
with brilliant yellow flowers that almost look like the bulb fields in
Holland. I’ve thought about taking a
Sunday drive on backroads through the farms in Gallatin Valley, and getting
some pictures of these brilliant yellow fields on a beautiful sunny day would
be perfect.
Well, the canola fields were easy to spot from the mountain
top but just where they were as I was driving around at surface level was not
clear.
It involved substantial driving
around with plenty of stops for pictures in scenic farm and ranch country with
Bridger Range backdrops. I passed through the small Springhill community and a
few small old churches and past ranchettes of the super wealthy as well as
working ranches and farms.
Eventually some fields came into sight, but even then there
aren’t roads everywhere and I had to circle around to try to find my target.
Beautiful! So I posted some pictures to
Facebook as a trivia question, “What is this crop?” Some responses came back as
mustard or rapeseed. I understand canola to be a particular hybrid of rapeseed
that was developed in Canada and given a more socially palatable name than the
traditional one. As far as mustard goes,
though, I had to do some research. Rapeseed/canola is actually a plant in the
mustard family, and the similar plants I’ve seen growing wild in recent weeks
between Bozeman and Butte are apparently a wild mustard.
I love mountains and living close enough to them that I can
go for hikes on a regular basis without having to drive too far and am sure I’ll
enjoy being close to skiing and snowshoeing in winter. But I also like being
close to scenic farmland. There’s something soothing about such open agricultural
landscapes with lots of livestock around like those in the Gallatin Valley.
2025-05-22