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