Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation. A Healing Arts Practitioner, she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Integrative Healthcare. She says, " Health is resiliency, a zest for the journey. It’s about coming awake to the joy of being alive. As a practitioner, its a privilege to facilitate that healing process, to help weave new patterns of health & well-being. “ And by the way, healthier, happier people help create a healthier, happier world.

Dunno. It’s a mystery.

Mysteries. Sometimes it’s a mystery to me why I read so many of them. I admit that I rarely make it more than half way in non-fiction books before I’m back to fiction, though I don’t always read mystery-thrillers. Sometimes I escape in to Fantasy - - literally.

Here’s a few issues I find as I read. As a Healing Arts Practitioner it bothers me when a detective gets beaten and shot up at the end of each book, and then is fine, fully recovered in the next. Only to have it all repeated. I have stopped reading mysteries like that, cannot suspend disbelief enough to stay with the story, when in my practice I see people whose emotional & physical injuries have shaped and limited their lives, layer by layer, injury by injury.

Or, there’s the detectives who live on junk food and alcohol, and yet are in superb physical shape, running 5 miles every morning on top of making miraculous recoveries from each injury. Or, those with personalities that can only be entertaining in a novel and then, a few books in to a series, not so much.

A year or so ago, I started to develop a new issue — “over-the-hill” detectives who are in their fifties, for heaven’s sakes. Little old ladies in their 60’s who serve tea and crumpets and live limited, fussy lives.

A friend in her 60’s noticed the same thing. It bugged her as well. The friends and relations I have in this “over-the-hill “age group don’t feel decrepit, are active, dynamic, interesting, and jam-packed with life wisdom whether they know it or not.

Me too. More or less.

Despite these reservations, if Montana winter ever decides to settle in and BE winter, I firmly believe that reading a good novel remains the absolute best way to while away a snowy evening in front of the fire. For your reading pleasure, here’s a handful from the dozens of mysteries I have enjoyed this past year:

Home Place by Carrie La Seur. Set in Eastern Montana. Found it in a bookstore in Missoula. Inhaled it.

The Wild Inside by Montana author, Christine Carbo.

The Ruth Galloway Series by Elly Griffiths. Set in England. Quirky and interesting.

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic: A Novel by Emily Croy Barker. Oh wait! This one’s not a mystery — but it is fun.

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. Set in Quebec. Recommended by a client. It’s part of a series but stands alone and is . . . beautiful.

In early January, a holiday tradition commenced as 41 people gathered in Kalispell and explored the city with binoculars and field guides. Through single-digit temperatures, this group spent the entire day tallying the various bird species that call this city home.

The results were bountiful: 19,380 birds were counted and 78 different species. The 17th annual Kalispell Christmas Bird Count, organized through the Flathead Audubon, ventured within a 15-mile diameter circle around Kalispell, including Evergreen, parts of the Flathead River corridor, the Owen Sowerwine Natural Area Happy Valley, Herron Park and Kuhn’s Wildlife Area.

“It’s mostly for fun but it also gains interesting data about bird trends and the distribution,” said Pete Fisher, who compiled the data for Flathead Audubon.

MORE>>>Flathead Beacon

Stan Lynde took the heart of Montana and shared it on the funny pages of newspapers across the country and abroad.

A new exhibit at the Montana Historical Society – “From the Heart: Stan Lynde’s Comic Creations” – showcases Lynde artwork and artifacts.

Lynde was best known for the Rick O’Shay comic strip, which began in 1958 and had a daily readership of 15 million in 100 newspapers during its 20-year span. In 1979, he started the strip Latigo, which ran through 1983. He even found a international audience, particularly in Sweden.

That probably makes Lynde Montana’s most-read author, MHS information officer Tom Cook said. Cook grew up reading the strip in Nebraska and following the adventures of Lynde’s most famous characters, Deputy Sheriff Rick O’Shay and gunslinger Hipshot Percussion.

“Rick O’Shay was cool, but Hipshot was something else. He could go either way, good or bad,” Cook said.

Not long before Lynde died in 2013 at age 81, he donated much of his remaining collection to the historical society. Some is still singed – or even completely blackened – from a 1990 house fire that destroyed many of his things.

Lynde had a “rancher’s perspective” on the fire, taking a long view.

MORE>>> Great Falls Tribune