Sapphires, Part I

The hills surrounding my house are rich with gold and sapphires—especially sapphires.  During the construction of my house, while a contractor was pushing the stone-filled earth around with the blade of a crawler, I found a green sapphire about the size of a kernel of corn in the upturned earth.  In the knot of timbered gullies immediately north of my house is a place we call the Chinese Diggings.  The diggings are today rows and stacks of beautiful stone amongst the pines—painted sandstones, snow-white quartz, river-carved chunks of limestone, black stones, green stones, blue stones, and white-veined red stones.

Back in the late 1800s, the Chinese workers that toiled to construct the railroad lines through the Rocky Mountains also sought gold in these hills.  They made the lovely rows and stacks of stone while digging through the hills to find the loose gold in the mix of floodplain stone.  Rumors persist to this day that cursing Chinese miners dumped back into the stone piles whole buckets filled with the sapphires that kept clogged their sluice operation.

Not that implausible, really.  Back in the early 1990’s I worked briefly on the set-up of a gold and sapphire operation located on a grassy bench less than two miles from my house.  The operation churned through the bench (reclaiming the land as it advanced) and produced enough revenue from the sale of sapphires to pay for the fuel used by all the heavy equipment.  Several sapphire mines are still operating in the valley as I write this.

The photograph posted today is one I snapped of a few of the stones I have gathered in the hills around my home over the many years of my life.

--Mitchell Hegman  

I am not opposed to Kicking Some Human Ass over Here

A photo of my cat Splash while I was teasing him with a length of wheatgrass.

--Mitchell Hegman

Russian Sage

Pictured today are photos of the Russian Sage growing near my hot tub.  I love the scent—like basil on triple-steroids.  Every time I pass near the plant, I pluck a tip from one of the stems and roll it in my fingers, sniffing.

Powerful medicine!

As the name implies, Russian sage is an exotic from central Asia (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Tibet).  The plant thrives in high dry climates as well as soils that verge on alkaline.   Russian sage makes for a tall and showy late summer feature in Xeriscaping.  From a distance the flowers sometimes appear like a deep blue mist floating just above the ground.   Unlike knapweed and Dalmatian toadflax, Russian sage is not invasive.      

--Mitchell Hegman

As a Whole

Early this morning I stepped outside and stood amid a cricket symphony looking up at the stars.  I saw the stars a whole—suspended above me and weightless as memories.  I have been under them for fifty-seven years now and for the entire time they have remained quiet as countless clouds smudged through them.

As I stood under the stars with the crickets skritching in my ears, I thought about how the night before last my friend came home only to find his wife wrong-colored and dead in their bathtub.

The end.

I have never assigned a color to hurt…but if I had, the sky would have been the color of hurt this morning.  Standing at the center of my deck, I spun around twice while gazing up at the stars.

Today, the stars are a whole because I need them to be so.

--Mitchell Hegman

Rules and Standards

Following are a few simple rules and standards I have adopted as guidelines for living my life:

SECTION I – General Policy

A.    Abide by all laws governing physics with the exception of gravity.

B.     The gradual adoption of my father’s weird conspiracy theories is acceptable, providing I begin with the one where the government is trying to control us by inducing signals in our microwave ovens as we cook.

C.     Avoid mushrooms that do not cause me to see cartoon characters dancing in the ice cubes at the bottom of my glass.

D.    Always be honest—even when the initial result is painful.

SECTION II – Treatment of Adults

A.    Most adults shall be approached with the caution reserved for someone about to give everyone in the vicinity an enema, repeatedly.

B.     Never listen to someone if they begin an explanation or proposition with any of the following opening statements:

a.       “Not that it matters, but…”

b.      “I am a banker by profession…”

c.       “Maybe you have heard of me…”

C.     Avoid those who think that only one thing in life is important.

D.    Avoid those who think that everything in life is important.

SECTION III – Treatment of Children

A.    Children must be treated with reverence.

B.     When seeking facts, consult children.

C.     Toys first, all else second.

D.    Teach every child at least one stupid-magic trick.

SECTION IV – Pretty Stuff

A.    Pay attention to pretty stuff.

SECTION V – Stuff that is not Pretty

A.    Do not pay attention to stuff that is not pretty.

SECTION VII – Personal Finance

A.    A little Scotch and dark red wine is an investment in wellbeing.

B.     Money is generally a bad investment.

SECTION VII – The Opposite Sex

A.    Pretty is fine, genuine it better.

B.     True love is never out of fashion.

C.     Salma Hayek.

--Mitchell Hegman

Thoughts of Mother as a Disciplinarian

My mother was made mostly of cardboard and balsa wood.   She knitted angry clouds from the shadows at night and cooked baby birds for lunch.  Perhaps you recall her beating your dog when it crossed her.

--Mitchell Hegman

We Are Men

We are men…and because we are men we work from the bottom up.  Well, unless breasts are involved, in which case we begin right there.

--Mitchell Hegman