Roots + Wings — Mountain Time

By Rory Feek, Plain Values

Most of the time when I’m writing this column, I’m in pretty much the same place. Sitting at the kitchen table in our farmhouse or at my desk in the milkhouse, with a view outside of the backfield and within earshot of Indy and the other kids playing on the playground at the schoolhouse. But this month, I’m parked in a chair at a much larger table in Paradise Valley, Montana, surrounded by big, beautiful mountains, with the gentle sound of the Yellowstone River flowing nearby. Each summer for the last five or six years, my little girl Indiana and I have packed our things, climbed behind the wheel, and driven 1,750 miles to spend a month out west together.

It’s an unusual situation—one that I wouldn’t normally be able to do—but it’s been a gift for us to be able to come here for the past half-dozen or so years. My wife Joey and I first found ourselves here in the Livingston area in the summer of 2013 when a man named Frank Smith and his wife Karen (who built a concert hall on their property similar to what we built on ours) asked us to come perform at “Music Ranch Montana.” We quickly fell in love with them, the Music Ranch, and Montana on that first trip. We became fast friends and, within a couple of years, were invited back to perform again. After Joey passed away in 2016, they just kept inviting us back. Little by little, it has turned into not just a once-a-year concert trip but also an annual month-long stay just across the road from their place at a wonderful fishing cabin called the O’Hair Lodge. It is nestled on the edge of the river, surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountain views in the world.

While we’re here, we spend a good amount of time taking in the sites around Livingston and Bozeman, trying new eateries, fishing and hiking when we can. We will even take a river-rafting trip or go trail riding on horseback when friends are here visiting, but mostly it’s a time of respite for me and Indy, even though she is too young to know it yet.

We also try to use the blessing that this place is to us as a blessing for friends and family. Each summer, we have a fairly steady flow of folks coming and going to the lodge to spend a few days or a week with us. As a matter of fact, Joey’s three sisters, their families, and her Mama June were all here with us last week, and this week we have some more friends from our hometown of Columbia, Tennessee, staying at the lodge with us. It’s hard not to want to make the gift that we’ve been given a gift for others.

Like me, Indiana loves coming to Paradise Valley each summer. She has grown up here. Although not literally, in some ways, it seems like she has. Back home, it’s hard to see the changes in her-—they go by so slowly. But here, because our time is limited and the memories of our visits are so vivid, it’s easy to see how much she’s grown and changed in the last half-dozen years. First from a little one who couldn’t walk or climb a single step up into the living area at the lodge, to now an eight-year-old who runs up and down them a dozen times a day. She sleeps in a little bed beside her Papa’s, and during these stays, life just gets simplified. We don’t bring much since we don’t need much here. Mostly just some clothes, some books, and some Barbies (Indy loves playing with Barbies), and I usually bring a camera or two and some notepads.

The truth is that it’s much more than just an annual vacation or a music gig for me. I come here each summer to close out my year and to be thoughtful about the next twelve months in front of us. Over time, I’ve learned to break my calendar year into ‘before Montana’ and after. Since we usually spend the month of July here, my year ends in July, and a new one begins August 1st. I try to spend the first couple of weeks thinking about where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and reviewing what I could have done better to make our life better, personally and creatively. And then, for the last two weeks, I try to prayerfully plan where I think we’re headed.

Most of the time, when I look at the past year and try to write down all the significant things that have happened in my life—month-by-month—the list I end up with is actually very small. And yet, it always feels like I’ve been so incredibly busy every day and haven’t been able to find the time to do all there is to do. My time of reflection tends to reveal that most of what I’ve spent my year doing isn’t very important in the scheme of things. It tends to have been filled with great amounts of ‘busy work:’ things that I think seem important at the time, but in the end, look more like me just spinning around in circles, wasting the precious year God gave me.

But I usually also find that some extraordinary things have happened, too. These are things that I sometimes can’t see when I’m ‘in the thick of it,’ things that might seem small to me in the day-to-day, but in looking back, I see that they’re actually big important milestones on my journey.

It was here at the lodge last summer, sitting on a couch talking with Joel Salatin, that I first heard about Plain Values and Marlin’s vision for the magazine. Over the next few months, the door opened for us to meet, and by late fall we had decided on a plan to work together (if you call this work). I’ve so enjoyed writing these columns each month, even though it’s still new to me to sit down and share in this way.

This coming year, I have some ideas and goals that I’ve been leaning toward, and this is the time when I try to ‘check in’ and evaluate whether where I think we’re going is where it feels like God is leading us. I’ve learned over time (often the hard way) that my will alone won’t lead me to a place of peace. Instead, I need to seek His will and vision for my life over my dreams, plans, and vision. And quite often, when I do, His plans for our upcoming year are not only better than what I had in mind, it’s also way more fun and exciting.

I think we all need to pick a time to ‘end our year.’ A time to truly look at where we’ve been and be prayerful about where we’re going. This year, I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to do it here in Montana, where I’m not distracted by the busyness of all we’ve been doing and all we are hoping to do. At the lodge, there is only now. We are here, together, and we have this moment to take a deep breath and say ‘thank you God’ for the path that led us here. It is a time to remind ourselves that we aren’t promised tomorrow and that each morning we get to wake is a gift. And so we should use this time to serve Him and others rather than just spending time on our own ambition and agenda.

“It is a time to remind ourselves that we aren’t promised tomorrow and that each morning we get to wake is a gift.”

So I’ll close this column by wishing you all “Happy New Year” even though we’re still months away from closing out 2022 and ushering in ’23. I hope you are able to find time over the next few months to truly look back on what you’ve done over the past twelve months and, even more so, what God has done in your life. Set time aside to be prayerful about what He’s doing in your life now and where you think it’s leading. //

~ rory

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This article was published in the September 2022 issue of Plain Values Magazine. If you want the latest stories every month, subscribe to the magazine HERE. As a special thanks, get 10% off your subscription with the code “GAB23”!

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