Weed Eaters

My neighbor, Leo, by the end of his days, had a 55-gallon drum filled with weed eaters standing on their tiptoes inside it.  Leo kept the drum of weed eaters in his Quonset hut shop.

I remember visiting Leo in his shop some seventeen years before his passing.  At the time, Leo had only three weed eaters.  I had expressed interest in buying a new weed eater for myself.  I sat on the back rack of his four-wheeler as Leo showed his weed eaters. 

“It’s been six months today,” Leo said as the two of us looked over a red weed eater.  “Six months since Elma died.”

Elma.  Leo’s wife.

“I miss her a lot,” he added.

I balanced the red weed eater in my hands for the “feel” of it.  I am never quite sure about the best things to say at such times. 

I looked over to the other two weed eaters.  An orange one.  A green one.  At times like these there are not enough weed eaters.  Not even a barrel filled with them will do.   And their color really doesn’t matter.

— Mitchell Hegman

Time on the Range

The electric range in my kitchen is thirty years old (and in need of replacement).   The digital clock on the range is ultra-sensitive to sags in voltage.  The slightest voltage dip will set the clock back to 00:00.

Resetting the clock is something of a ritual.  You must turn a setting knob, poke a button, poke another button, turn the setting knob, poke a button, spin yourself around three times, stomp one foot, and yell “Swedish meatballs!” at my 20 pounds of housecat.

And, sometimes, that doesn’t work.

For a few years—for whatever reason—our power grid was unstable.  We experienced a lot of blinks in our power.  I often found the range telling me the time was 00:00.  Frustrated by trying to reset the clock I decided to leave it at 00:00.

Sadly, I was not smart enough for that, either.  Early in the morning, or late at night, I might catch the time and stand there dumbfounded for a few seconds, wondering: “Where am I supposed to be at zero O’clock?”

— Mitchell Hegman

Popular

I always wanted to be popular.

That didn’t happen in either grade school or high school.  After my school years, I got a little busy and rather forgot about popularity. 

And then…

Finally!

I have achieved a level of popularity I never dreamed possible.  I am getting letters from across the United States.  A lot of letters.

Granted, they are all from people wanting to offer me supplemental insurance for when I join the Medicare rolls in a couple months, but popular is popular.

— Mitchell Hegman

The Language We Share

English is not Desiree’s second language.  It is her third.  Even with that, she has an excellent grasp of English.  Her vocabulary is surprisingly expansive.   But there are those times—typically, when we are texting—where I think I am going left in a conversation and she thinks I am going right.

I tend to create confusion in one of three ways: by joking, using slang, or using idioms and expressions.

I can understand how my jokes don’t always translate.  My jokes often crash land in East Helena, Montana.   No surprise if they crash and burn in the Philippines.

Slang and some of our expressions are something of a “hit and miss” proposition.  Sometimes they fly.   Sometimes, not so much.  A seemingly quick and easy phrase I throw out there might set our conversion to wobbling and then send it spiraling down.

I may, for example, say, while talking about something I am trying to get done, “I am dancing as fast as I can.”

The next few minutes will become a flurry of explanatory texts beginning with: “No, I am not dancing here.”

Our conversations are sometimes twisting and turning adventures.  I have concluded we don’t have a language in common so much as a one we share.

— Mitchell Hegman

Inside Us

A small correction.  We are not filled with light.  We are filled with sound.  And the sounds within us are soft, but steady enough to bring down mountains if we persist in trying.

— Mitchell Hegman

Technical in a Second Language

In preparation for an upcoming work-related project, I am reading several technical books on the functions and uses of digital multimeters.  One of the books has become my go-to source for (often hilarious) creative writing examples.   The book is “The Complete Guide on Digital Multimeter,” by Edmond Chucks.

Technical writing is seldom great study for the practice of creating writing, but this book is a notable exception.  Clearly, English is a second language for the author.  His use of our English language is…curious.

Online reviews gave the book a 4½-star rating.

Following are a few examples Edmond’s work (exactly as written).

Example #1:  Some digital multimeters have light up shows for better review should in case of low light circumstances. 

Example #2:  All multimeters take readings after some time and give you the normal afterward, so anticipate that the perusing should change.

Example #3:  A decent snap on the range selector is really a significant in addition to in our book.  A delicate handle is normally demonstrative of a disgraceful meter.

Example #4:  A divider outlet with AC or “fundamental voltage” is the stuff that can destroy you great.

Example #5:  All things considered, remember to kill your meter!

Just to make my reading more interesting, the pages started slipping out from the book and drifting to the floor like falling leaves the third time I opened it. 

Finally, I am a bit confused.

— Mitchell Hegman

Wasgij

Aside from having plenty of “cleavage” pieces to keep me entertained, the jigsaw puzzle I just completed is interesting for the type of puzzle it is.

The puzzle is a Wasgij.

“Wasgij” is “jigsaw” spelled backwards.  Wasgij puzzles are a challenge in that no image of what the puzzle will look like when complete is provided with the puzzle.  The picture on the front the box will only give you a few hints of what to expect.

In the case of the particular wasgij I just pieced together, the finished puzzle depicts what the redheaded woman using the gym ball on the box cover sees.

I have posted pictures for comparison.

 Puzzle Box

Completed Puzzle

— Mitchell Hegman

Scenes from a Warm Winter Day

After our recent spell of Arctic weather, yesterday’s warmer temperatures called for a gathering at the lake.  I hiked down to the lakeshore to join my neighbors after a short walk on the road in front of my house.

I enjoyed feeling the sun pressing heat against me as I walked.  And the sky was big yesterday.  Bigger than normal, it seemed.  From end to end, the deep blue of midday was marbled with clouds flowing eastward.

Down at the lake, we enjoyed the requisite fire near the shore, but also had a sledding run just off the fire, and an Estes hobby rocket to launch.

I put the rocket together.  I would like to note that I even applied all the decals to the craft.   The rocket is designed to reach over a thousand feet above the launch pad with the engine provided in the kit.

Everyone took at least a single run down the hill using one of the various plastic sleds available.  I ended up sprawled out near the bottom of the run with snow in my left ear.  Sawyer shot off the run and crashed into a wooden pallet, but survived just fine.

We hauled my rocket out onto the middle of the lake ice hoping to launch against blue sky and sweeping clouds.    Sadly, the winds proved too strong on the lake.  We were forced to scrub the mission.  Maybe later this morning on that.

I have posted a few photographs from the day.

    

Sun over the Elkhorn Range

Stacie on a Sledding Run

Amelia (Stylish in Her Snowsuit)

Sawyer at the End of a Sledding Run

Scrubbed Rocket Launch

— Mitchell Hegman

Our Simple Life

We are bones dancing

Under layers of pink silk

We are dust swirling

Across an unbroken plain 

We are heat captured in a jar

 

— Mitchell Hegman

Boobs (Again)

A few days back, while sorting through pieces of my latest jigsaw puzzle to find the edge pieces, a certain piece caught my eye at once.  This particular puzzle is a 1000-piece cartoon drawing.  The instant I saw the piece, I set it aside.

“That’s boobs!” I said to myself of the piece.  Cleavage, at least.  I felt something near 100% certain this.

Weirdly enough, this is not the first time I have been confronted such a thing.  On April 7, 2020, I posted about a similar discovery when working on a in a different cartoon puzzle.

In both cases, I instantly identified the pieces as depicting boobs while initially sorting pieces.

Yesterday, I put in place the piece I set aside.  Sure enough…cleavage.

Apparently, I am getting good at this.

The Cleavage Piece

Cleavage in Place

— Mitchell Hegman

Proper Laundry PPE

I have been trimming around the new windows on the interior of my house for the last few days.   My chosen material is poplar wood with a white stain applied.  I have been diligent about wearing personal protective (PPE) when running my various saws.  Eye protection and hearing protection are a must.

Yesterday, midway through my work on the windows, I realized I needed to run load of laundry.  I wore PPE for that, too.

Trimming PPE

Laundry PPE

— Mitchell Hegman

Big Turnips

People do strange things.

In my way of thinking, growing turnips is strange.  While I am a fan of vegetables, I find turnips unpalatable.  Additionally, they are often too woody to whittle down to size for shooting from the potato gun on my back deck.   

In spite of this, there is a man named Damien Allard in Carleton-sur-Mer, Quebec, Canada, growing big turnips.  Really big.  After growing a 15.4-pound turnip in 2016, he set out to challenge the Guinness World Record, occupied since 2004 by a turnip weighing 39 pounds.

Mr. Allard’s 2020 crop of turnips produced three record-breaking turnips.   The largest weighed-in at 63.9 pounds.  The other two weighed 50.49 pounds and 53.79 pounds, respectively.

Personally, I would rather break the Guinness World Record for running with knives.

— Mitchell Hegman

Source: UPI

Split Agate

Sunday afternoon, I put to test a new lapidary blade I purchased.  To do so, I cut lengthwise through an agate I found near my house a few years back.  This is the kind of rock that makes you want to split open every rock you find  just to see what is inside.

Agate Inside

Agate Outside

— Mitchell Hegman

The Hawk

My 20 pounds of housecat is fairly incompetent as a predator.  This is fortunate.  I am allowed to have a birdfeed because my cat long ago gave up on trying to catch birds.

I would not feed the birds, as I do, if they became easy prey to my cat.

A few days ago, I spotted a small hawk perched my post and pole fence not far from the bird feeder.  I failed to successfully identify the hawk, but there are several similarly sized hawks that regularly prey on smaller birds.

“Not good,” I thought to myself.  “Might be a scouting mission.”

Yesterday, as I stood near my den window—one of the windows offering a view of my birdfeeder—a blur of motion about six feet off the ground caught the corner of my eye.  I glanced outside just in time to see the hawk flapping away with a smaller bird of some kind in its talons.  Likely a finch of some kind.  A spray of dark feathers in the air slowly sifted down onto the snow where I first saw the flash of motion.

The question now: do I want to operate and maintain a daily buffet for a hawk?

— Mitchell Hegman

Metahumans

The phase “reality is what you make of it” is increasingly becoming literal.  Deepfakes and digital animations are astoundingly realistic.  I am not sure I like such trickery.  There is a lot of room for use in nefarious ways.

Click on the link I have posted below and watch two short videos on Metahumans:

https://www.ign.com/articles/epic-games-metahuman-creator-reveal-unreal-engine

— Mitchell Hegman

An Emergency

Yesterday morning, I woke to a cold house.  As soon as I rolled from bed, I knew my boiler had failed somewhere in the night.  At the time the temperature outside was at -18 degrees.

Deadly cold.

Fortunately, I have a variety of electric heaters I sprinkle throughout the house during arctic weather events such as the one currently gripping us.  A quick tour of the house revealed all the heaters galloping along in grand fashion.  Even with that, some room thermostats indicated a temperature of around 60 degrees.  To bring up the temperature a bit, I flopped open the door on my range and set the oven to bake at 300 degrees.

From past experience, I know that inside my house, when confronted with outside conditions such this, the temperature will drop 3 degrees every hour I go without any heat.

A power failure at this point would end me.

I am pretty good at boiler-speak.  I understand how they function.  A quick round of troubleshooting proved the boiler and gas valve in working order.  Propane was not reaching me from the tank outside.

I called my favorite plumber.  He told me his work started and stopped at the boiler.  He suggested a call to my propane provider (similar to a drug dealer, but both legal and pricier).   

I called my propane company and explained my boiler was not working and I suspected a problem with the tank I rented from them.

“Our service guys are booked out for two months,” the woman I spoke with told me.  “We might be able to do something if you have an emergency.”  

Weird.  Here I was, thinking I had an actual emergency.

— Mitchell Hegman

NOTE:  Eventually I spoke with someone from “the crew.”   Help was dispatched immediately.

 

Ink: Another Casualty

I regularly purchase my printer ink at Costco.  Yesterday, I stopped there to do little shopping.  Knowing my printer cartridges are on the verge of winking out, I blasted down the aisle where ink cartridges are found.

I walked the aisle twice but failed, both times, to spot my required cartridge type on display.

As luck would have it, two Costco employees were nearby—busily screwing up the store.

Okay, before I go on, I need to explain the “screwing up the store” thing.  That’s what I call it when store employees move stuff to a new location in the store so I can no longer find it.  And that is exactly what these two fellas were doing.

Anyhoo…I asked about the ink cartridges.

“Can’t get ‘em,” says the 7-foot-tall employee.  They are having trouble making them.  The ink isn’t the problem.  It’s the chips they use.”

“Huh.  Weird.  Thanks,” I said.  I plodded off to the wine aisle.

The Covid thing has created some strange shortages.  Toilet paper.   Are you kidding?   Cleaning supplies.  Canning Jars.

And now, the little wafer brains needed for commanding my printer’s ink cartridges.

— Mitchell Hegman

History by the Numbers

Here is human history by the numbers:

• 70% Fighting and Killing (65% for the Irish)
• 20% Loving
• 5% Inventing Stuff
• 5% Booze (10% for the Irish)

— Mitchell Hegman

Behind My Calm

In the evening, I drink in the small earth,

the hills shoulder to shoulder,

the sun’s gold twining with shadow and chaparral.

Long I taste the loamy river bottom,

the leafy insinuations

and sweetgrass scarps.

 

Before I sip down the coastal breeze,

I swirl the gulls aloft for a moment

and allow a single white horse to reflect

against the calming ocean water.

The horse stock-still.

 

— Mitchell Hegman

The Opposite of Cleaning the Oven

In a recent blog, I mentioned getting stuck inside due to bitterly cold weather might force me to clean my oven.  Instead of cleaning my oven yesterday, I did rather the opposite.

Our current spell of sub-zero temperatures provided a unique opportunity for me to defrost my old-timey-builds-glaciers-inside freezer.

After unplugging my freezer, I lugged my frozen whatnots and whizbangs outside to the back deck and allowed the Arctic impulse to keep them frozen while I took a run at breaking up and melting the glaciers from inside my freezer.

My chosen tools for ice removal were these: wood chisel, electrician’s hammer, and pots of heated water.  I suppose someone, a carpenter for example, might make a valid argument for using another type of hammer, but we can reserve that argument for a warmer day.

The project took something near three hours.

The real story here?  I had fun.  I got to bust-up something, make a mess that simply melted, and rock-out to music the whole time.

What’s not to like?

Goodies in Temporary Cold Storage

Getting Started

My Tools

Cleared Freezer

— Mitchell Hegman

Giving Someone a Lift

Yesterday morning, while driving on Helena’s Park Avenue near the Civic Center, I saw someone sitting in deep snow—flailing—just off the sidewalk.  I immediately pulled over and ran back to see if the person needed help.  The temperature was something near -5°F.

I found a woman of about eighty.  She was wearing a backpack.  A plastic bag filled with groceries was looped around one arm.  She had apparently fallen while walking through the heavy snow on the uncleared sidewalk.  “Do you need help?” I asked.

“Maybe you can help me stand,” she suggested.

“Be happy to.  Hand me the bag and then you can grab my arm.”

After taking her bag, I stood on the sidewalk and extended my arm.  Working together, we brought her upright.

“The snow is deeper than I thought,” she admitted.

“Almost a foot right here.  Where are you going?”

“To my apartment down the street.”

“How far?”

“Above the Library.”

“That’s too far to walk in this mess.  Let me give you a ride.”

I helped her into my truck and we drove off toward the library.  We talked.  She told me she grew up in Butte.  All of her loved ones were gone.  I had found her on one of her regular walks to Thriftway to get groceries. 

“I like walking she said.  And I like the snow.”

“But not when you are swimming in snow,” I amended.

Her apartment, it turned out, was a bit more distant than she suggested.  We ended up at an apartment complex between Cruse Avenue and Rodney Street.  I pulled up to the front door, helped her out of my truck, and walked her to the apartment entry.  “Have a good rest of the day,” I told her.

Fishtailing away in the deep snow, I suddenly realized we never exchanged names.   Sometimes, I suppose, names don’t matter.

— Mitchell Hegman

Clarity of View

I met the man on a flight across the Pacific Ocean.  He wore a dark suit and had hair pulled into a long straight ponytail.  He was fifty-something.  Tall.  Friendly.

We talked easily, openly.

“Montana,” I said when he asked where I came from.

“I know Montana,” he remarked.  “I was stationed at Malmstrom Airforce Base while in the air force.  Big sky country.  You know, the sky really is bigger there.  It has to do with the clarity of view.”

We soon established we knew someone in common in Montana.  I had met the person, at least.

That’s Montana.

I learned the man worked and a cinematographer.  Mostly Documentaries.   “I am in a relationship with one of my daughter’s friends,” he told me not long after.  “She’s twenty years younger and gorgeous.   I didn’t plan it.  She kept turning up.  One day, she says, ‘Are you going to take me to bed, or not?’”

“Yes, you did,” I suggested.

“Yes, I did.”

“How is your daughter dealing with this?”

He thought for a moment.  “These things take time.”

“Has to do with clarity of view,” I said.

— Mitchell Hegman

Cold Weather Response

 

Our weather has taken a turn towards frigid Arctic conditions.  I am fully prepared to spend a few solid days indoors.

Here is a list of things you might expect from me as I ride out the cold weather:

• 70% chance of cleaning my oven
• More rocks cut in two
• Naps long enough to give me a bed-head
• More wandering around the house naked
• Add sub-notes to my two pads of existing notes to myself
• Practice my English accent on my houseplants: “El-low Begonia!”
• Write and launch a blog entry nobody understands after reading through a collection of Billy Collins poems.
• Capture a photograph of my 20 pounds of housecat  ü
• Bake the huckleberry pie I prepared and froze in October
• Nap again (as an experiment to see if my hair will straighten out)

— Mitchell Hegman

Hot Culture

I performed a bit of electrical work yesterday.  Not an extensive project.  I replaced (“changed-out” in electrician-speak) a three-way switch at my home’s garage entry door.

Okay, not a huge deal.  Especially, considering I have been an electrician for 44 years now.

What is a big deal, however, is how I performed in a “hot work” culture for much of my career.  I, and most of my coworkers, rarely de-energized circuits when working on receptacles or switches.  We “worked them hot.”  

Yesterday, the older and improved version of me de-energized the circuit.

In the era when I constructed my home, most switches were not provided with a grounding terminal and the switches were, therefore, ungrounded.  Such was the case with my original switch.

Today, I would like to announce I not only de-energized the circuit—I also grounded the switch.

It has only taken 44 years to get this far.  Someday, I might be pretty good at this electrical stuff.

— Mitchell Hegman

The Cookie Monster

Yesterday, I posted about cutting rocks in half.  Later in the day, I ran across an article about an agate someone cut in two.  The agate, a gemstone produced by an ancient volcano, was found by a gemologist in the Rio Grande do Sul region of Brazil.

Once cut in two, a remarkable likeness of the Cookie Monster from “Sesame Street” emerged.

Collectors value the agate at $10,000.

The Cookie Monster

The Agate 

— Mitchell Hegman

Source: www.huffpost (Elyse Wanshel)

Cutting Rocks

The way I have it figured, if you have the ability to cut rocks in two, you do it as often as possible.  Well, at least as often as you find interesting specimens.

Funny thing about “interesting specimens.”  My standards for what I consider such has shifted dramatically now that I can saw open rocks.  Rocks with even a few color bands or swirls of color are far more are interesting.  They might be a treasure chest inside.

I want to saw them open and find out.     

Today, I am posting a photograph of a rock I cut in two a couple days ago.

A treasure chest! 

 

— Mitchell Hegman

My Foam Rodeo

At the time of construction, my house was insulated with polyurethane foam.  This included foaming the air spaces between my window jambs and the 2 x 6 framing members. 

Last week, in tearing out my old windows, the insulating foam had to be removed.  The foam came out in a zillion chunks, ranging from the size of a pea to the size of my hand. 

Once popped free, the pieces of foam took on strong static electricity charges. The charges, I discovered when trying to clean up the foam, adopted one of two distinct behaviors.  Some, immediately clung to my clothing, my ladder, the walls, or nearby furniture.  Other foam bits were sharply repelled by the plastic waste basket and plastic bags I used to collect the mess—they flung themselves away from the trash if I tried to drop them inside.

My cleaning developed into something of a rodeo.  I found myself either chasing foam or trying to detach myself from it.  A vacuum cleaner worked pretty well at sucking up the smaller pieces and neutralizing the trash-rejecting charges.  Nonetheless, I chased foam around for the better part of a couple days.  Even now, many days later, I am finding random flecks of foam roving around inside my house.

— Mitchell Hegman

Living with Magpies

Magpies are smart birds.  They pay a great deal of attention to the “goings on” in their neighborhood.  In many ways, they establish the rules of play for most other local critters.

I have seven or eight magpies regularly visiting my birdfeeder.  When they come in (usually as a full parliament), all the other birds clear out.  All except a northern flicker that rather hangs with them.

The northern flicker is, apparently, an honorary parliament member.

Over the years, the magpies have dive-bombed and tormented my various cats.  All of my cats soon learned to avoid them.  I have watched the magpies pester deer on many occasions.

Some years ago, friends of mine in Helena had a pair of magpies nest within an apple tree in their yard.  Magpies build a huge nest—a kind ball or wicker basket made of sticks.  The nests are quite conspicuous, but jealously guarded by the birds.    The pair of nesting birds were strangely tolerant of my friends, Gary and Sarah, and even their small dogs.  But they raised holy hell with the neighbor’s dog and cat.  Sometimes they pestered the neighbors themselves.

The birds tag-teamed the dog.  While one captured the dog’s attention in the front, the other would peck at the dog’s rump.  After enough wheeling round and round and fruitlessly chasing about, the dog would trot off to hide.

The birds held the neighbor’s cat in particular contempt.  They would not allow the cat anywhere near the nesting tree.  They devised a unique way of irritating the cat.  They swooped down and pooped on the cat whenever it came near.

Crude, but effective.

— Mitchell Hegman

PHOTO: Wikipedia