Competitive Edge

I’m still patiently waiting for the day when my fear of spiders and my ability to juggle will give me the perfect competitive edge over everyone else. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

—Mitchell Hegman

My Bad Ear

Apparently, my ear has athlete’s foot. Well, if not actual athlete’s foot, then something suspiciously similar—a fungal infection lurking deep in the ear canal. The symptoms alternate between feeling like my heartbeat has relocated to my ear and like ants are having a knife fight in there.

Also, I’m hearing through what feels like a bale of cotton.

Yesterday, following a second trip to urgent care, I found myself browsing the foot care section of a drugstore, looking for the topical medicine the physician recommended—for my ear.

Can we talk about fungus for a second here?

For starters, I’m not a fan of mushrooms. Most of them taste like bad dirt, and for some reason, many edible varieties make me violently ill. I also find the mold that pops up on our food wholly off-putting. It’s gross, right?

And the stuff in my ear? What’s the point, Mr. Fungus?

I’m listening—as best I can—for a valid answer.

—Mitchell Hegman

In Bloom

Our sunroom hoya plant is in bloom. The blossoms, which form in clusters, almost look fake in their perfect symmetry and seemingly solid appearance. Even the plant itself, with its thick, glossy leaves, resembles an artificial “plastic” plant.

But there’s a hitch in the system: the blossoms, quite frankly, stink. Apparently, to make up for an infrequent blooming schedule, hoyas have adopted a strategy of emitting an intense scent to attract as many pollinators as possible.

I am not at all fond of the smell, and you can count me out as a pollinator. To me, the blossoms offer the uncomfortable odor of a shotgun marriage between a cat’s litter box and gasoline fumes.

I’m sharing images of our hoya that I captured with my smartphone.

Blossom Details

A Hoya in Hand

—Mitchell Hegman

A Snake’s Lunch

As a point of fact, I eat baby birds. I’m talking about eggs, of course. But saying I eat eggs is a rather euphemistic way of admitting that I eat baby birds. Snakes also eat baby birds—eggs and otherwise.

At midday yesterday, I stepped outside to drag a hose over to irrigate my Mayday tree and heard the nesting robins pitching a fit in the canopy. One solid glance at the tree revealed why: a four-foot bull snake was coiled in the branches near the robins’ nest.

The snake was looking for lunch—in this instance, the fuzzy baby birds in the nest were lunch.

As a human, I’m funny about things. By funny, I mean I tend to make impractical or inconsistent judgments about the natural world. For example, watching a robin eat baby worms to survive doesn’t faze me. But a snake eating baby birds to survive—well, isn’t that wrong?

A little study of the scene revealed that the snake had already eaten. There would be no saving the little robins.

So, I performed my most human of duties: I poked at the snake a little with a broom handle, just to give the robins some semblance of justice. Then I fetched my smartphone and a Cold Smoke beer so I could bracket a few photographs—four of which I’m sharing today, including one with the can of Cold Smoke on the ground for a sense of scale.

After getting a few pictures, I gave the snake some distance and allowed it to thread its way back down to the ground and slither away. We all have our roles to play, whether or not we admire one another for it.

Bull Snake Stretched Out

Snake on the Move

Snake at the Robin’s Nest

A Cold Smoke Beer, Mayday Tree, and Snake

—Mitchell Hegman

Live Trapping Season

Chipmunks are perhaps the busiest—and arguably cutest—critters scurrying through Montana’s woods and backyards. Members of the squirrel family, these tiny foragers pack more personality—and survival savvy—into their striped bodies than their size might suggest.

They’re omnivores with a strong preference for seeds, nuts, berries, and fungi—especially mushrooms. Insects and other small invertebrates round out their diet when available. Chipmunks are relentless in their pursuit of food.

Interestingly, they rarely drink water directly. Most of their hydration comes from the foods they eat—berries, juicy plants, and the occasional sip from a dew-covered leaf. They’re built for efficiency, and it shows.

Chipmunks are quirky. They flit about with jittery precision, always one twitch away from dashing into a thicket. That speed is no accident—it’s survival. As prey animals, chipmunks rely on quick, darting motions to evade hawks, snakes, foxes, and the neighborhood cat.

Winter brings a change of pace. Rather than fully hibernate, chipmunks enter a state of torpor, waking occasionally to nibble from carefully stocked caches. They spend the season in burrows with separate chambers for sleeping, storing food, and—remarkably—waste.

This time of year, chipmunks are especially active, and they like to raid Desiree’s flower and berry patches.

These constant raids initiate Mitchell Hegman’s live trapping season.

In the last couple of days, I’ve captured and released—far down our country road—six chipmunks from the plant buffet that is the “yard” around our house. My work is not done. Even as I picked up the last chipmunk I caught, one of its pals zipped past me at a million miles per hour.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Will Rogers Said

 —"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.”

—"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?”

—"People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.”

Along the Front

Desiree and I drove home from the cabin by way of the Front Range of the Rockies.

The “Front,” as we call it in Montana, is a dramatic meeting of worlds—where wind-scoured prairie upsurges suddenly into a soaring wall of limestone and shale, fringed with sweeping foothills and canyons carved deep by time and water.

We stopped often, drawn to fence lines and expansive views, to watch the shadows of clouds drift across the vast, handsome land.

I’m sharing three photographs I captured along the way.

Montana Highway 200

Desiree and the Front Range

Gaillardia

The Cabin Stairs

Some 22 years ago, the stairs leading to the loft at the cabin were framed. Over the course of the intervening years, I applied finish to all of the framing around the stairs. I installed oak treads and risers. I installed handrails.

Yesterday, Desiree and I began the process of finishing the open wall behind the woodstove. This project is being done to Desiree’s specifications. We are using locally sourced, rough-hewn fir with 4-inch spacing between the balusters.

The project is rife with angle cuts and tight-space challenges.

It’s a task requiring the efforts of both of us.

So far, so good.

I am sharing three photographs documenting our progress.

Before We started

Progress

View From Above

—Mitchell Hegman

Smaller

The stars still float in their endless ocean of cobalt sky and I have come to the frayed end of sleep. I am the softest thing about at this hour. Even the smallest songbirds have hunched, solid as stone, within the pine and juniper. I cannot properly see my mountains, and I have nowhere to walk to. A better man would use this quiet time to think of new inventions or solve a great riddle. But all I can do is think about my latest exhibitions of human frailty, and I become smaller and softer.

—Mitchell Hegman

Practical Advice for People in a New Relationship

For no particular reason, I’ve been thinking about the struggles couples often encounter when first entering into a relationship. Specifically, I’ve been considering how grocery shopping together can solidify a couple’s bonds.

For example, if your new partner reaches for the bacon before you do, that’s a solid win.

I was dazzled the first time I shopped for produce at a grocery store with Desiree. She is capable of literally opening the plastic bags she pulls from the dispensing roll on the first attempt. That’s a remarkable partner right there.

Potato chips are tricky. You don’t want a partner who insists on a full-throated ban. But, at the same time, you don’t want to see the cart filled with chips. If you find that happy medium early on, you may be set for life.

When it comes to dessert, your ability to compromise may make a difference. You may need to trade raisins for coconut shavings. On occasion, you may need to accept sherbet instead of ice cream. Approaching this with grace may be a winning strategy.

The impulse purchase of flowers or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to share provides a firm foundation for deeper commitments.

And if your partner doesn’t judge you for pressing every avocado on the display like you're interviewing it for a job, you may have found true love.

—Mitchell Hegman

Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Philippines

Both our house and cabin are a bit tricky to find. Thanks to the renaming of our road and the addition of new spurs around us, most map and navigation apps fail to properly guide people to the house—and sometimes lead folks to far-off places. The cabin proves tricky due to the illogical splay of old-fashioned mountain roads leading to it—and the lack of cell service doesn’t help.

To help visitors locate both places, Desiree opted to purchase a Philippine flag she could plant at the final turn when we’re expecting someone. Immediately after the flag arrived, she stepped outside to test how the island colors looked against our storm-crossed Rocky Mountain backdrop.

Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Philippines!

—Mitchell Hegman

Things That Would be True if I had My Way

Following is a list of things that would be true if I had my way:

• People who make a habit of littering would develop something called litter-bug syndrome, which causes them to constantly drop heavy objects on their toes.
• Stupidity would be curable.
• Gray-haired people (not blondes) would have more fun.
• Precious metal prices would respond favorably to my investments.
• Deer would prefer eating noxious weeds, and some bucks would sneak into your yard and plant flowers.
• Thirty dollars would be enough to live on for a week.
• Cars in front of you would always remember to use their turn signals—and actually turn.

—Mitchell Hegman

Pretty (With a Holes in the Top)

Living in the country means you will necessarily be cohabiting with wild critters of all sizes and appetites. Deer—the largest animals sharing our immediate outside space—love to nibble on Desiree’s pretty flowers and newly planted trees. The occasional skunk will sneak into the yard and root out grubs from the earth along the foundation of the house.

Well, a new twist occurred on the rodent end of this spectrum. Turns out, a certain mouse down at the lake likes to eat my pontoon boat. Yesterday, when Desiree and I prepped the boat for a cruise on the lake, we discovered the beginning of a nest atop one of the pontoons. I also discovered the beginning of another nest inside the rolled-up Bimini top. More distressing was the fact that the mouse had gnawed several large holes in the Bimini canvas.

Ungood, that.

After clearing the nests from the boat, we dropped it into the lake and cruised down to Hauser Dam. I’m sharing photographs of the pretty views from Hauser Lake (with holes in the Bimini top included).

View From the Boat

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Laurence J. Peter Said

— “If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.”

— “The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.”

— “Going to church doesn't make you any more a Christian than going to the garage makes you a car.”

Breaking Out

My hoya plant has been in the sunroom for three years now. As mentioned in a previous blog, my hoya originated from a start taken from a plant my grandmother brought into her house in the 1940s.

We can confidently say the hoya has thrived in the sunroom. The planter it’s rooted in has vanished under a thick proliferation of vines and leaves, and vines have also twined up the wall and across the ceiling. The most recent growth surge has sent runners out in an attempt to reach outside through the nearby glass. Some vines are even attempting an escape through the window between the sunroom and what is now my office.

A hoya will go wherever it can and will set roots in other pots if its vines or nodes come into contact with soil. Hoyas thrive by naturally rooting along their stems when they find organic matter or moisture. If a vine extends into a nearby pot and touches the soil—especially at a node (the point where leaves and aerial roots emerge)—it can begin to root there over time.

As a point of fact, my hoya is presently in a planter it stole from a jade plant. For this reason, I’m keeping a close watch on the runners to make sure they don’t plant themselves in a neighbor’s pot of soil.

I’ve posted a photograph of the hoya. Please note, as a reference for size, the Cold Smoke Beer on the brick ledge.

The Sunroom Hoya

—Mitchell Hegman

Webby

It’s getting awfully webby out there.

Desiree and I overnighted at the cabin again, and summer is nearly upon us. As you move through the woods and brush, you constantly feel the whisper of tiny webs brushing your face, lassoing the bare skin of your arms. Sometimes you can spot a gossamer thread stretched long through the air—but more often, not.

This is the work of young spiders—and possibly some variety of caterpillar or wiggly worm on a quest.

I’ll grossly understate things by saying I don’t enjoy walking into spider webs. I think that’s better than admitting to quiet panic. To soften the experience, I try to imagine the webs are spun by worms or caterpillars instead.

As a personal favor, I ask that all you amateur entomologists play along with this idea—even if you know full well no such bugs are afoot this time of year.

Thank you in advance.

—Mitchell Hegman

Seat 11A

 

On most days, sitting in seat 11A on a jetliner doesn’t mean much. It’s a window seat ahead of the port wing, and next to an exit. Two days ago, a British national of Indian origin, named Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, took seat 11A a few minutes before the plane he boarded was scheduled to depart from the city of Ahmedabad, India. All around him, other passengers jostled into place, fought carry-ons into the overhead bins, chatted.

At takeoff, the thrust of the Boeing Dreamliner’s engines pressed him firmly against the seat as the jet streaked down the runway. The plane lifted into the air, climbed. And then something odd happened. Later, Vishwash recounted: “After takeoff, after 5–10 seconds, it seemed like the aircraft was stuck.”

Horror absolute.

The plane rather sank in the air and crashed into buildings in the city below, generating a fury of impossible sounds, infinite and unbinding chaos. Somehow, once all the forward momentum ceased, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh opened his eyes. He was alive, but surrounded by the mangled dead. Beside him, the exit door had cracked open. He untangled himself and squeezed out into the light.

All of the other passengers and crew on the flight, including his brother, who had been sitting in a different row, had perished—241 of them. And somehow Vishwash found himself alive and staggering down a street surrounded by shocked and unfamiliar faces.

By what providence, by what flip of luck, had seat 11A saved him?

Dreamliner Seating

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh

—Mitchell Hegman

Living in a Simulation

I stubbed my toe on the way to the kitchen. It hurt like the dickens and actually caused me to hop around in a circle like a one-legged bunny rabbit. For some reason, this ridiculous scene forced me to question reality. What if my toe and I are not part of base reality? What if everything—the chair I bumped into, New York City, my sweet wife, love, and every tragic war suffered by humanity—is just part of an elaborate simulation?

There’s a theory for that. Simulation theory. It suggests that if technology progresses far enough, someone—somewhere—might simulate an entire world, down to the smallest mote of dust looping the lemon tree in my sunroom. If they can run one world, they can run millions. Which makes the odds lean toward this not being base reality, but a copy. A high-resolution echo.

Even physicists admit the code might be showing its skirt on occasion. The universe acts digital in strange places—quantum particles that flip when measured, light that obeys a universal speed limit, space that’s not quite continuous. It behaves more like a program than a place.

Still, I carry on when my toe stops hurting. I kiss my wife when she draws near enough to me. Whether this world is real or rendered matters not. This is the only world I know.

Painting With Light

—Mitchell Hegman

My Go-To Shirt

My go-to shirt is about ready to give up the ghost. It’s literally falling apart and now riddled with small holes.

It’s a long-sleeve flannel number, my go-to. I’ve had the shirt for something near twenty years. The shirt fits me well and feels like a part of me when I slip it on. I like to wear it when I feel a chill after first rolling out of bed in the mornings. I like to slip it on when I’m rolling out the door in cool weather.

This is a shirt that likes to go to work. To chop wood. To dig in the dirt. It likes to play.

When not wearing it, I hang the shirt on a rack in the laundry room for ready access.

This shirt, as I mentioned, is in tough shape. The cuffs are fraying apart. The small holes are growing into big ones. Honestly, an argument to throw the shirt out could have been launched five years ago. But I’m hanging on. So is the shirt.

As long as the sleeves remain attached, we are good to go.

My Go-To Shirt

Frayed Cuff

—Mitchell Hegman

Clearing the Way

In addition to being prepared for any kind of weather conditions when driving mountain roads in Montana, you need to be prepared to suddenly find the route impassable because a tree has dropped across the road. To that end, I carry a couple of handsaws in my truck at all times. Often, I also have my chainsaw bouncing around in the box of the truck.

Yesterday, after rounding a corner on a road traversing the mountains outside of Lincoln, Desiree and I encountered an aspen tree slashed across the roadway, making it entirely impassable. Not a sapling, either. This one was nearly sixteen inches thick at the base. Luckily, I had the chainsaw.

I fired it up and chunked the lower section into pieces we could roll aside. Desiree and I worked together, clearing just enough space for the truck. At one point, the chainsaw bar got pinched between two trunk sections, and I had to dig out the handsaw to free it. Fifteen minutes later, I squeezed through the narrow path we’d made—back on the road, the way open behind us.

The Aspen Tree Across the Road

Me Sawing Through a Section of Truck

Driving Through the Narrow Section of Cleared Road

—Mitchell Hegman 

Something Zig Ziglar Said

—"There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.”

—"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

—"A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

In Celebration

Nothing says “celebration” in Filipino culture more than lechon. For the uninitiated, lechon is a whole pig spit-roasted over charcoal and flavored with oil and spices. It's the dish of choice for any special occasion.

To mark the twofold festivities of Desiree’s (also Anna and Ida’s) birthday and our third wedding anniversary, we roasted a 47-pound pig down at the lake. Desiree and I started prepping the lechon at 4:00 in the morning and finally pulled it from the coals at 1:00 in the afternoon.

We had a grand time from beginning to end.

The Entire Gathering

All Three Birthday Girls

Lodi and the Lechon (Cooking)

Desiree with the Lechon (Read to Share)

—Mitchell Hegman

Bunchgrass Baseball

Today, I’m sharing a photograph of four Filipino boys playing baseball on the bunchgrass prairie in front of my house. I’m not sure about the rules of their four-man game, but it lasted into twilight—the lovely end to another fine June day on the edge of the Rocky Mountains in Montana.

Bunchgrass Baseball

—Mitchell Hegman

Seven Questions

1. Is a hard reboot your first choice for solving connectivity problems?
2. Do you presently have any keys hidden under a rug?
3. What single name would you give yourself if you were on the verge of becoming famous?
4. When shopping, do you ever decide you don’t want an item and place it with the nearest display rather than return it to its original spot?
5. When was the last time you had a drink of milk?
6. Have you ever suspected that your toaster is purposely rigged to burn your toast every third or fourth time?
7. Have you ever literally swept something under the rug?

Yogurt Someone Dropped in With Frozen Chicken

—Mitchell Hegman

A Band-Aid and a Wedding Ring

There’s a story about George Carlin that sticks with me—not one of his cutting monologues or blistering observations about society, but something quieter.

Sometime after the death of his wife, Brenda, Carlin was cast in a film to play a priest. The role called for him to appear as a man of the cloth—celibate, ringless. But Carlin, reeling from the recent loss of his wife, couldn’t bring himself to remove his wedding ring. Brenda had been his partner for over thirty years, through the ups and downs of fame, addiction, reinvention, and radical honesty. Taking off that ring, even for a part, felt wrong to him.

Eventually, Carlin struck on a compromise: he would cover the ring with a Band-Aid.

This was a practical solution for a movie camera, but also a private form of resistance. He wasn’t hiding the ring from the audience so much as he was sheltering it—shielding the part of himself that still held on, still mourned, still honored the love of his life.

George Carlin was the guy who tore down sacred cows, challenged institutions, and never missed a chance to call out nonsense. But that Band-Aid tells another story—a private and deeply human one.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Sure Sign the Relationship Is Over

You can be fairly certain your relationship is over when the couples counselor you are seeing suggests you start throwing knives at each other.

—Mitchell Hegman

Anniversary

I’ll fix you a sweet drink, my rare orchid, and you can tell me how the blossoms on our new tree have turned to apples. We’re not tearing through the house today, but we’re steady in our best light. Together, we’ll let the day settle, brushing aside sour news as it comes.

Remember that study claiming true love only lasts six months to two years? We can smile at that. They certainly missed the mark. Just look at us—tomorrow we step quietly into our fourth year.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Most Common Thing

As a kid, the most common thing for me was asking my mother, “How come?” or “Why is that?”

During my days on construction sites, I constantly quipped, “More work, less talk.”

At this point, the most common thing I find myself saying is this: “Desiree, I screwed this up. Can you fix it?”

—Mitchell Hegman

The Unstackables

You’ve likely heard of the “untouchables.” There are two meanings, actually. One refers to a marginalized caste in Indian society. The other to incorruptible Prohibition-era U.S. lawmen.

In my firewood stockpile, I have something I call the “unstackables.” These are chunks of split wood too wonky to fit into my neat rows of firewood.

I’m a bit persnickety about my stacks, and the unstackables—thanks to bulging knots or twisted grain—are irregular in shape and don’t fit in. They make the stack tippy and loose.

As fuel, though, they’re just fine.

My solution is to toss them into a loose pile on top of a box I built for firewood storage.

It ain’t pretty, as they say in slack quarters, but it burns well.

An Orderly Stack of Firewood

The Unstackables

All Put Together

—Mitchell Hegman

A Whatizit

I don’t know my weasels. I mean, I don’t know a mink from a least weasel or a ferret from an ermine. If you exclude black-footed ferrets (which are extinct from my region of Montana) and exclude badgers and wolverines (because they have obvious features), there are seven weasel-type critters that scamper the wilds surrounding my cabin.

One of these little scurrying whatizits tripped my game camera late in the night and provided me with a fuzzy, ill-lighted photograph capture. Given the location of the animal relative to the camera, I would guess it to be somewhere north or south of two feet in length, including the tail.

So, I’m thinking—suppose I left a can of Cold Smoke beer out there so I could both attract these critters and have an accurate reference for size…

If you look closely at the center of the photograph I’ve posted, you can see the whatizit in question.

Mystery Capture

—Mitchell Hegman