A Single Feather

I’m incapable of passing up a feather. If I chance upon a feather lying on the ground, I feel compelled to sweep it up and examine the colors and patterns, and then drag it like a soft file against my wrist. Feathers are invariably pretty. The standards iridescent. The structures impeccable, sometimes otherworldly.

Interestingly, a feather grows the opposite manner to a tree. A tree grows new at the top, while a feather grows new at the bottom. Trees add height and reach through their tips, where buds at the ends of branches and the crown extend upward into the light. Feathers, by contrast, push out from follicles in the skin, with fresh cells forming at the base and older material carried upward until the feather unfurls to full length. One reaches higher by stretching at its topmost points, the other by building steadily from its root.

Yesterday, I found a feather near my back door—a northern flicker feather, by my best estimation. That’s a woodpecker, for those of you from my lovely smelterite-filled neighborhood in East Helena, Montana.

Northern flickers are strikingly attired and sure to catch your eye. They also overwinter in our rumpled swath of Montana. For that, I give them due credit. At the same time, they can prove a pest. They are not opposed to pecking away at the exterior of a house if they appreciate the sound it makes or suspect dinner is someplace inside. A few years ago, one of our local flickers took to hanging out with a rowdy band of magpies that regularly descended upon my yard.

Interesting stuff, that. And the feather I picked up is interesting enough that I placed it on a shelf in my den.

The Feather

Northern Flicker (Photo: Audubon)

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Sitting Bull Said

Sitting Bull (c. 1831–1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux leader, warrior, and spiritual figure best known for uniting the Plains tribes against U.S. government policies that threatened their land and way of life. Revered for his wisdom and courage, he played a central role in the resistance leading to the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, where Lakota and Cheyenne forces defeated General George Custer’s troops. Though later forced to surrender, Sitting Bull remained a symbol of Native American resilience and dignity, even touring briefly with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He was killed in 1890 during an attempted arrest at Standing Rock Reservation, but his legacy endures as a powerful voice of defiance and cultural pride.

Following are three quotes from Sitting Bull:

— "It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”

—"Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”

—"Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?

—Mitchell Hegman

Another Observation

In my limited experience, mean people make decent electricians, but they don’t make for good cashiers at the local grocery.

—Mitchell Hegman