Waking Human

Some days, you wake feeling wobbly and cautious as a newborn deer painted by first light.  Other days, you wake and emerge from your bed feeling sure and sturdy as a predator freshly emerged from the earth.

This morning, I woke feeling entirely human and needing to pee.  So I hugged my pillow and fell back to sleep for a bit more.

—Mitchell Hegman

Mid-Summer Sunset

Yesterday, the North Hill Fire, though not contained, laid down for most of the day on the flanks visible from my house.  The sky did not fill with columns of smoke as in days previous.

Throughout the day, heavy slurry tankers lumbered back and forth overtop my house.  I watched them loop though the smoldering mountains, dropping retardant along the most threatening flanks of the fire.

As of last evening, the fire had claimed some 4,200 acres.  All told, 400 homes have been evacuated over a wide area endangered by the wildfire.  Thankfully, no homes have been lost to flames to date.

Posted are a couple photographs of last night’s sunset, featuring the lake and the sky posing as they should on a mid-summer night.

—Mitchell Hegman

North Hills Fire

Saturday Afternoon.  Just across the lake from my house, the North Hills Fire is clawing up the flanks of a mountain.  On Friday, the fire underwent a blowup, expanding from something near 100 acres in size to almost 3,000 acres.  Some 400 people have been evacuated from their homes.

As I write this, sitting on my back deck, several dark fists of smoke punch hard at the soft underbelly of sky to my northwest.

Also in the sky: machines.

Choppers whunking back and forth between the lake and plumes of smoke in the mountains.  Choppers descending to dip water from the lake’s surface.  Choppers ascending to splash watery fans against hot spots among the shawls of smoke.

Whunk, whunk, whunk, whunk…

And bigger machines.

Spotting planes constantly droning circles through the curtains of skyward smoke.

Come and go slurry bombers lumbering, rumbling back and forth to and from nearby Helena—looking like bird footprints dragged back and forth across the valley.

I have 200 feet of garden hose extended down into the sage, pine, juniper and bunchgrass landscape just below my house.  I am soaking the flora and earth on the fire-side of my home in the event wind drives embers up and over the lake to rain down on my side.  These embers are the foot soldiers of fire.  The scouts.  The assassins.  If they join ranks…if they fury into a march…into a firestorm…there is no stopping them.

I watch from my deck hoping the first scout never arrives.

Photographs taken from my deck:

Mid-afternoon

Near sunset

Night

Night

Night

—Mitchell Hegman

Map of Montana

When I wake at in the morning at the cabin, the first thing finding my attention is a huge map of Montana on the wall opposite my bed.  This is no accident.  I love maps.  And, well, I love Montana.

Within the dark folds of the mountains, bedside the lakes and across them, along the blue-vein rivers, from end to end, and from tip to toe of that map, my memories reside.

The map is me.

I am the map.

—Mitchell Hegman

Strange Diversity

Back in late June, a man named Stephen Jennings was caught driving a stolen car and arrested in Guthrie, Oklahoma.  Obviously, someone willing to steal a car has something of a troubled mind.  But Stephen Jennings apparently has a troubled mind with a twist. 

The arresting officer, Sgt. Anthony Gibbs, upon searching the car, found an open bottle of Kentucky Deluxe whiskey, a concealed weapon, a canister of radioactive powdered uranium, and (TA-DA!) a pet timber rattlesnake in a terrarium on the back seat.

Apparently uranium ore can be purchased from Amazon right along with your lawn chairs and bed sheets.  Not sure where the snake might have come from.

Honestly, you kind of need to respect such diversity wherever you find it.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Paleo Diet

For those of you unfamiliar, the Paleo diet is a food plan where you eat only the types of foods eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era (from 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago).  The diet consists mostly of foods attained by hunting and gathering.  Food intake is largely limited to lean meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds.

Foods to be avoided are those that emerged when humans learned to successfully farm.  Given such, the intake of dairy products, legumes (beans and lintels) and grains (pasta and bread) are either limited or avoided.  Processed foods and sugar are also avoided.

Maintaining weight is a primary goal of this diet.  Following the guidelines will also reduce the ingestion of chemicals, preservatives, and additives.    

The Paleo diet is sometimes called the Stone Age diet or the caveman diet.  The very first time I heard of this diet, someone referred to it as the “caveman” diet.  Not yet knowing any details about the diet, I immediately envisioned myself running around with a club chasing bunny rabbits to bludgeon for dinner.

No, to that.

As it turns out, my diet largely follows Paleo guidelines.  I have no problem avoiding sugar and most processed foods.  Avoiding pasta and cheese is a bit more problematic.

I am thinking I might have descend from a more sophisticated farmer-type caveman.  So those are the guidelines I am following.

—Mitchell Hegman

Blobfish

On occasions when you are feeling sorry for yourself, it is suggested you take time to consider those around you who are less fortunate.  In this reflective practice, you will realize things are not so bad after all.

As a public service, I am offering the smooth-face blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) as a perfect “less fortunate” subject for you to consider the next time you have need to focus on such.

In name alone the blobfish sounds sad and luckless.  And the “face” of a blobfish is perpetually sour.

Blobfish are lonely, deep water dwellers found off the coasts of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.  Unlike most fish, blobfish are not sleek and muscular.  Their bodies are much more a semi-buoyant gelatinous mass than anything.  Instead of flicking and swimming about at depths, the bloblish more or less floats and bumbles along just above the sea floor.  To sustain itself, the blobfish gulps down any edible matter that happens to float in front of it.

Sad and hapless from beginning to end.

I have posted a couple images of blobfish I found floating about on the internet.

I hope this makes you feel better about yourself.

—Mitchell Hegman

Castle

My plan is to build a castle from evening light and the fine pollen of sunflowers carried to me by bees.

I am yet in the planning stages, but I know it’s possible.

I believe in evening light.

And I worship bees.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Scoundrel versus Bigfoot

A scoundrel will stab you in the back.

An ambitious person will stab you in the front as well as the back.

Bigfoot will stab you in the side with an icicle.  The icicle will melt leaving no evidence.  And when you try to tell people Bigfoot stabbed you, they will politely excuse themselves, claiming they just remembered they have delicate clothes to pull from their dryer.

—Mitchell Hegman

Never

The man who spent his life seeking only to find the meaning of life never married.  He never lived with a cat or dog.  He never painted a room.  He never noticed how the sound of children playing in the distance sounds like musical notes poured from a tin can.  Never noticed which crack in the sidewalk the ants preferred.  Never drove into the mountains to gather wild berries.

Obviously, he never found the meaning of life.

—Mitchell Hegman  

A Poet Takes Leave

Honey, it was an accident

when I said “I Love you.”

Same as building my own house

was an accident.

But there are subtle differences.

For one,

love doesn’t start with walls.

Walls are where you end.

—Mitchell Hegman 

Above Me

In the cool hours of yesterday morning, I stepped out my front door and walked a half-mile down my “dive” just to stretch my legs.  As I walked along, my eyes were continuously drawn above.  I was struck by a firm line of clouds rolled into place above me.  The clouds stretched across the entire valley in something of a Chinook arch.

In a single, overused word: beautiful.

Posted is a photograph I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.

—Mitchell Hegman

Left Behind

I know better than to allow my cat to sit on my lap immediately after letting him in from an hour or more outside.

But he has those eyes.   You know, the ones that melt you when he looks up at you.

This morning, my cat came in after about an hour of slinking about in the juniper and sage below my house.  Against my better judgement, I let him sit on my lap while I drank a cup of coffee and sat there wondered why we don’t have two thumbs on each hand.

That would be so awesome!

When I swept the cat off my lap so I might trot off to refill my cup, I found the following left behind:

1 rather large brush-stroke of his hair

1 small, crumpled leaf of some kind

1 small pine beetle

3 cheatgrass seeds

I will admit, when I was a kid, my bed likely sported a lot of the same relics.  I often climbed into bed directly after a full day of “exploring” the vacant fields and cottonwood groves near our house.  My mother sometimes made my bigger sisters change my bedding.  I think my sister Debbie is the one who once complained: “I don’t want to change Mitch’s sheets.  They are always full of dirt and sand!”

Given this, I make allowances for my cat.

—Mitchell Hegman  

Two Mornings, One Day

It’s the little things that screw up an entire morning.

Take this morning for example.  I forgot to put my scoops of coffee in the coffee maker last evening—as I do every evening.  Not knowing this, I poured water in the machine, poked the power button, and stumbled about listening until the machine stopped hissing and gurgling.

When I finally drifted back to the coffee maker, I found a carafe of very hot, slightly tinted water.

What the?!?  

How could I forget coffee?

So, I started my morning all over again.

Step one: two-and-a-quarter scoops.

Two mornings, one day.

—Mitchell Hegman  

Three Notes on the Moon

ONE: Yesterday, July 16, 2019, marked the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission.  On the 20th of July, 1969, a lunar module touched down on the surface of the moon and ejected two men: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.  The men pranced around on the surface of the moon for some 21 hours.  Meanwhile, Michael Collins tripped around and around the moon tending the main ship.  On the night of the landing, I was thirteen and overnighting at my father’s cabin in the Cabinet Mountains outside Thompson Falls, Montana.  The moon was but a waxing sliver among tamarack trees.  My father and I listened to the landing on a radio skip he’d found by placing a homemade antenna on a battery operated radio.     

TWO: A brilliant young singer-songwriter from Missoula, Montana, Maiah Wynne, won the Music from the Moon international songwriting contest.  The contest was part of the official moon landing anniversary celebration.  Maiah is one of my favorite emerging artists.  I have posted her winning song, Show the World, at the end of the blog.  

THREE: Last night, the full moon loitered around the windows of my house, occasionally waking me.  Usually, moonlight strikes me as being cold.  Not last night.  Last night, the light felt warm.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ePpHlqrl4 

Rest

I woke strangely again this morning.

I popped awake from a dream in which I was entangled in a pile of branches blown to the ground by a fierce, hissing windstorm.  And then, when I tried to shift my position in the bed, I discovered my body hopelessly knotted into what seemed the aftermath of an explosion of blankets, sheets, and pillows.

I often wake from dreams of violence and find myself snarled into my bedding.

Sometimes, it appears as if I have traveled complete circles around my bed while plowing up the sheets and blankets with my feet along the way.

“Rest” seems an inappropriate term for my sleeping.

—Mitchell Hegman

That Guy

Here is something to bear in mind the next time some random dude yells out “Play Free Bird!” at a piano recital.

That very guy is somebody else’s special someone.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Rainbow at the End

Near the end of yesterday, following a rainstorm that dragged across our valley like a dark bag filled with punching fists, the sky cleared to the west.  Though the sun was only minutes from sheathing itself someplace within the farthest mountains, enough light remained to offer a rainbow across the low hills near my house.

I ran outside in my bare feet and captured images as the light and the rainbow, faded.

—Mitchell Hegman

Woodland Strawberries

Evening last, I walked a distance into the sun-setting woods from my cabin and, choosing a random log, sat.  What, I wondered, would I find most interesting if I sat there as all the shadows gathered together in one darkness?

I found two mosquitoes first.   Then, a half-sized chipmunk dancing on the bough of a fir above me.  A half-dozen arrowhead blue butterflies stitched past.  Fading arnica flowers.  Sticky geranium purpling against the shadows at the beginning of their bloom.  A curtain of kinnikinnick draped across the punky remains of a long fallen branch.  A beetle clunking across the understory.   Floppy pine grass just standing there being, well, floppy.  Nameless birds chirping and peeping.  

But most interesting?

I found a sprawling patch of woodland strawberries right at my feet.  A mat of them, in fact.  A tangle of red creepers and triple-leaf clusters.

A closer inspection revealed several ripe berries. 

These will not soon be a cash crop.  They are not the hulking cousins you find at your nearest grocery.  The woodland strawberry is quite small.  Generally, smaller than a pea.

I ate one.

Super sweet.  I do not like “store-bought “strawberries.  I never purchase them and only rarely eat them.  But the woodland strawberry is delicious.  Wondrous, in fact!

The woodland strawberry has a fairly wide distribution—extending from Alaska to California.  Not only is the fruit sweet and edible, but the entire plant boasts medicinal properties.

The strawberry plant is antiseptic.  The Okanagan-Colville Indians used powders made from the leaf as a disinfectant on open wounds.   Agents within the plant will cause tissue to contract.  The woodland strawberry plant can be used in the treatment of toothaches and gum problems.  The plant has been used to regulate menstrual cycles.  Powders made from the plant have been used as a poultice for open wounds.  Teas made from the strawberry plant induce urination.

Hooray for the woodland strawberry!

Posted is a photo of one of the berries I found.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sources: http://montana.plant-life.org,  http://fieldguide.mt.gov

The Black Widow and the Grasshopper

I triggered the call to death.

Clumsy and thoughtless in my human way, I dropped my foot into a clump of needle-and-thread grass.

That, the call to death.

A small grasshopper launched forth from the grass and, as I watched, veered directly into a low and messy spider web festooned between a weathered juniper stump and a tuft of bunchgrass.

The flight ended with the hopper hopelessly trapped in an awkward upside-down sprawl across the web.  The hopper quivered there, unable to escape.

I was about to reach down and flick the hopper free when I saw a black widow spider sprint out along the web from a hole under the stump

The black widow positively danced a jig on the grasshopper, injecting poison, assessing, and throwing silk to bind the victim in place.

I had three choices:

1. Walk away.

2. Dispatch both predator and quarry.

3. Witness until the end.

So, both curious and dismayed, I watched.

After an initial ambush, the black widow backed away a bit, waiting, I suppose, for its sweet poison to incapacitate the hopper.  After a sufficient time, the spider rushed the hopper again, flicking silk, spinning the hopper, wrapping the insect into a gruesome bundle.

The spider’s back legs blurred with motion.

Within a few seconds, the black widow had wrapped the hopper into a tight bundle.  She then snipped the bundle free from the web, attached it to her abdomen, and dragged the bundle back into her black lair under the long-dead stump.

Neither Edgar Allan Poe nor Stephen King could have written a quicker horror than this.

I walked on, careful of my step.

—Mitchell Hegman

Four Miles

Early in the morning, I walked four miles alone through the broken hills near my house.  Through tall sagebrush and juniper I went.   Across shale arroyos.  Across ancient river-wash stones and prickly pear cactus.  Through bluestem grasses.  Under a blanket of sky-crawling clouds.

Two hours of just me.

Along the way, I learned two things.

One: Throwing sticks remains satisfying in middle age.

Two: Red-winged blackbirds will yell and bluster at you if you enter their space.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Woody Allen Said

—Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.

—It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

—Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go it’s pretty damn good.

Fantasy Road

Fantasy Road does exist.

You can find it along the north hills of the Prickly Pear Valley.

I drove past the turnoff to Fantasy Road yesterday while on my way to visit a friend. 

Appropriately enough, Fantasy Road is both a dirt road and a dead end.

—Mitchell Hegman

Up and Through the Big Belt Mountains

Bucking and kicking up hard against the sky between the Missouri River and the Smith River in West-Central Montana, you will find the Big Belt Mountains.

The Big Mountains are something of a spur connected to the main chain of the Rockies.  If Wikipedia can be trusted, the mountain range gained its name because the mountains form belt-like arc as they stretch out in a generally north-south orientation.

These mountains hold upright some of the oldest sedimentary stone in the region.  These oldest rock formations were deposited a billion or more years ago.  Then, between 670 and 200 million years ago the region lay below a vast inland sea.  The detritus sifting down through the water to the seabed during this time period created the younger limestone found within the range.   In the time since, tectonic forces have thrust and buckled these limestone deposits into the spectacular outcrops and upright cliffs we see today.

In these you might find the fossils of ancient sea creatures.  

My house today rests at the feet of these mountains.  I reside on the Missouri River side, not far from 7,813-foot Hogback Mountain. 

Yesterday, I took a drive across the Missouri River drainage and up through the twisting limestone canyons to reach the backside of Hogback.  I had planned to hike, but ended up simply touring though the mountains due to rain.

No harm in that.

Along the way, I captured the photographs posted here today.

Looking Down the Canyon

A Patch of Lupine

                                                                 

Inside the Canyon

Paintbrush in Sunlight

—Mitchell Hegman

Lightning

This summer weekend brought hordes of boaters, jet skiers, swimmers, wakeboarders, and fishermen to the lake.  Late yesterday afternoon, a bruised and angry storm rolled over the mountains and spread quickly across the water.

The lake quickly cleared of activity.

Then, just as strong winds whipped the lake into froth and lighting cracked repeatedly through blackening sky, a lone pontoon boat sped along down the center of the lake.

I watched in amazement, imagining a huge bullseye for lightning painted on the boat's Bimini canopy.

I watched the boat extend itself down the entire length of the causeway arm and slice out of sight around a rocky bend.   

Years ago, my neighbor, Leo, sat along the shore of this very lake watching a duck jostling around on whitecap waves at the center of the lake during a similar storm.  That’s a pretty stupid duck, he thought to himself.  That duck needs to swim to shore.

Only a few seconds later, as he watched the duck, a brilliantly white stroke of lighting speared the lake exactly where the duck crested a whitecap.

The duck disappeared into a spray of feathers.

—Mitchell Hegman