Big Green

Desiree and I found ourselves in an area of the forest charred by wildfire last year.  For the few months following a fire, such landscapes are otherworldly and seemingly derived almost entirely from India ink.  But provided with moisture from winter’s snow and spring rain, green returns to the scorched landscape.

In some places, the green emerges in fits and starts.  Maybe a flag of green will appear here and a tuft of something there.  But in other places, the green blares forth in a bigger way.

I am posting photographs of patch of false hellebore we encounter while exploring a section of the fire-darkened forest.       

Big Green, that.

Desiree Walking Through the Blackened Landscape

False Hellebore

False Hellebore

—Mitchell Hegman

Branding Day at the 4-R

The 4-R Ranch & Cattle Company (owned and operated by the Russ family) branded their new calves yesterday.   As in years past, I pitched in as best I could.  My job yesterday entailed directing calves down the narrow run from the holding pen and then urging them into the branding squeeze chute.

Three items to note regarding my branding station for the day:

First, I needed a little on-the-job training.  Directing calves is a little like herding giant, furry marbles.  They tend to scatter in all directions when you get near them.  Second, holding two or three calve in place inside the run proved the real work.  Calves are surprisingly squirmy and strong.  And some of them like to throw a random kick now and then.  Finally, the entire branding process, thanks to a steady rain, turned into a mud bath.

Fortunately, I don’t mind being kicked at now and then, and I harbor no immediate fear of mud.  In the end, we pushed a couple dozen calves through the branding process.

Branding a Calf

Me Waving from My Work Station

Mud is Good Stuff

Mommas and Calves Waiting to Reunite

—Mitchell Hegman

Dirt Conversion Kit

Another of my country neighbors had a dirt conversion kit dropped off at his property.  A dirt conversion kit consists of bundles posts and poles for fencing in a few acres.

My neighbor intends to fence in a small part of his property and toss a couple horses inside. 

Ours is a dry and fragile landscape consisting of shortgrass prairie with occasional patches of bunchgrass.  Digging down, you find a thin layer of soil overtop sand and stone.

“This ain’t horse country,” anyone from my hometown of East Helena will inform you.

Horses, if confined to paddock here, will require no more than a few days to graze every thread of grass down to bare dirt.

I drive by several such squares of bare ground (populated with hay-fed horses) on my way home from town.  Soon, I will have a patch of bare dirt next to me.       

—Mitchell Hegman

The Rocky Mountain Front

Yesterday, I promised Desiree a life-altering experience.  “We are going to drive along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains,” I told her.  “I heard the wildflowers are peaking in many areas right now.  If they are anything like normal this year, you will see oceans of wildflowers.”

The arrowleaf balsamroot did not disappoint.  We encountered enormous colonies of balsamroot blooming across the flanks of mountains and throughout the adjacent foothills.  

According to a blog I read at naturesseed.com: “Arrowleaf balsamroot can get up to two feet tall and forms a taproot that can reach depths of six feet. This makes it a very drought tolerant plant and a great addition to water-wise landscapes. The taproot itself has a very pleasant balsam-like odor, giving the wildflower its name. On top of its drought tolerance, arrowleaf balsamroot is very winter-hardy and able to handle part-shade. It does take a while to fully establish and mature, often requiring three or four years to produce flowers.”

After several hours of touring the foothills of the Rockies, we diverted into Sun River Canyon and drove partway back through the mountains and overthrusts of the Sawtooth Range.  This is a part of our landscape still under construction.  There is no clear balance between, running water, timber, and solid stone.  If you appreciate massive cliffs and blockish, abrupt mountains, this is a place for you.   

Before the road once again trickled out from the foothills and onto the open plains, Desiree saw her first ever bear.  We saw three, actually: a sow and two tiny cubs.  We saw the bears for only a few seconds before they scrambled away into some thick timber.  I am pretty sure they were grizzlies.

Since we failed to capture an image of the bears, I am offering flowers and mountains for today.

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

Desiree Amid the Flowers

Sun River Canyon

Diversion Lake

—Mitchell Hegman

Challenged (A Big Deal)

A lot of things in this life challenge me.  Reaching the highest shelf is a challenge for me.  Both parallel and back-in parking are problematic.  For a long time, properly pronouncing the word “photovoltaic” proved difficult.  I am still working through my own personal spelling bee.

Last night, both Desiree and I discovered we are—as a couple—challenged by posting an event notification on Facebook.  I will you spare you the details, but I can tell you that between my computer and Desiree’s smartphone we pecked away at keyboards for nearly an hour navigating Facebook’s menus and layers.  We also placed a few phone call queries.  

Desiree and I were trying to post an invitation notification for a celebration of our union in matrimony.   We will be celebrating at our lakeshore on the 4^th of July between 1:00 and 6:00 in the afternoon.  We selected Independence Day to celebrate because we want to be part of a big deal.  We want our yearly anniversary celebrations filled with fanfare and fireworks.

After much giggling, squinting, poking, and a couple bad words said aloud, we managed to get our event posted.  If we can get through a Facebook posting as a couple, I figure we can get through anything.

—Mitchell Hegman

Our Morel Mushroom Patch

Mushrooms are as weird as anything else in the world.   They thrive in the craziest locations and live in outlandish conditions.  A friend of mine told me his best spot for hunting and harvesting shaggy mane mushrooms was the old garbage dump in East Helena, Montana.     

Morel mushrooms are another case in point.  They flourish like nobody’s business in areas devastated by wildfires.  In our region of the Rockies, mushroom pickers swarm the charred landscapes during the first two spring seasons following fires.  On a good day, an ambitious mushroom hunter can fill grocery bags with the highly regarded fungus in the fire blackened backwoods.

And, of course, morels will occasionally pop up in random and unexpected places.   Last week, while mowing the smallish patch of grass I tend at my lakefront, I ran across four smallish morels.  Desiree had never seen a morel.  We picked them and she later sautéed them in butter and ate them.

Yesterday we found two more four-inch-tall morels near the same spot in my lawn.  “I want those,” Desiree announced.  “I want to eat them.”

I managed a photograph of the morels before they were whisked off to the frying pan.

Our Morel Mushrooms

—Mitchell Hegman

Charles M. Bair Family Museum

Charles M. Bair came to Montana from Paris, Ohio.  Shortly after his arrival in 1883, he worked as a train conductor.  Charles also ran a small sheep operation in Central and Southeast Montana.  Bair later made a considerable fortune by investing in a ground-thawing device used during the Alaskan Gold Rush.  He used his earnings to further invest in oil, mining, banking, and real estate.

Charles Bair turned one of his investments—a ranch he purchased in Martinsdale—into one of the largest sheep ranches in the world.  For a time, he ran 300,000 head of sheep on his ranch.  The Bair’s constructed a mansion there alongside the Musselshell River.

Charles and his wife, Mary, collected antiques, artwork, and Native American clothing and relics.  The Bair’s raised two girls: Marguerite and Alberta.  Following the death of Charles and Mary, the two girls traveled extensively and continued amassing artwork and fine furnishings from Europe. 

By the 1960s, the girls envisioned and began planning to turn their lavish Montana ranch home into a museum.  The last surviving girl, Alberta, passed in 1993 at the age of 97.  Not long after Alberta’s death, the property became the museum she long envisioned.

On our Sunday drive home from Red Lodge, Desiree stopped to tour the museum.  The museum offers too much for proper description.  I encourage anyone able to visit there to do so.  I am posting a few photographs from our tour to offer some idea of what you will find.

  

View From the New Museum Building

The Two of Us Enjoying the Grounds

The Office

A Bedroom

Fancy Bath

Modern Kitchen

—Mitchell Hegman