Late Blooming Flowers Seeking Pollinators

Back on October 9, I shared a photograph of one of the yuccas in my yard that had thrust forth a flower stalk. Pretty weird stuff, that. Our native soapweed yuccas are programmed to bloom in June and into July, not October.

Even on this late date, two flowers on the stalk have actually started to unfurl and open. Interestingly, this particular plant produced a successful flower spike in a timely fashion in June.

This eleventh-hour effort is not optimal. Obviously, the weather will soon slap the plant silly. Additionally, failure is further assured by the nature of the yucca’s pollinators. The plants rely primarily on a specialized pollinator aptly named the yucca moth. The problem here is that the moths have entirely abided by their appointed schedule and exited stage left months ago.

If this story were to hit the personals, it would be filed under this banner: Late Blooming Flowers Seeking Pollinators.

Blooming Yucca as of October 27

—Mitchell Hegman

Dancer

Back in the days when my friend Kevin was at an age where he and his wife were first considering producing children, he suggested, only half-jokingly, that he would like to name a girl Polly Esther. This would never have cleared the bar with his wife, of course, but he and I both enjoyed the whimsy of the name.

Two weeks ago, I fell headlong into a brief dream from which I recall little more than meeting a young girl named Dancer. In the time since, the name keeps flapping across my brain space at unexpected times.

I would not be afraid to name a girl Dancer. But I fear Kevin might take it to the next level and go for naming a girl Exotic Dancer.

—Mitchell Hegman

Coopers Lake

Yesterday, after cleaning out the last of the perishables and unplugging the cabin’s refrigerator for the winter season, Desiree and I took a drive to Coopers Lake to see if the western larch had turned their color.

On my, yes, to that. Solid gold.

The larch are at their fall peak and are just now beginning to shed needles. As an aside, if you should ever have need to annoy a forester or logger in this corner of Montana, misidentify these trees as tamaracks in their presence.

Anyhoo, we enjoyed the day immensely and spent considerable time wandering about just off the edges of the twisting mountain roads, bracketing colorful photographs, some of which I’m sharing today.

The Road In

Cooper’s Lake

Desiree on Point

Surrounded by Tall Larch

—Mitchell Hegman

GENER8ION - STORM

GENER8ION’s “STORM,” featuring Swedish rapper Yung Lean, is a seven-minute fever dream directed by Romain Gavras and choreographed by Damien Jalet. Set in a dystopian British boys’ boarding school in the year 2034, it follows a charismatic, brutal student who presides over a world of violence, intimidation, and reckless conformity. The production culminates in an astonishingly synchronized dance sequence involving dozens of real performers, filmed with extraordinary precision.

Generally, large groups of synchronized dancers leave me entirely unimpressed. But the final three minutes of this video are spectacular on a new level. I’m impressed. The video subsequently went viral, inspiring AI-generated imitations of its signature dance and prompting Gavras to defend the human effort behind the original.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6_mbnsh6VU 

Assessing the Storm

The rain is converting to snow and flying sideways. Wind has flattened my tired old iris stands on the incline out back. They look like piles of off-color, melting swords. This kind of weather speaks a language the robins and vesper sparrows don’t understand, so they hide in pine whorls that bob up and down when shouldered by brawny gusts.

I know better: you can’t trust your life to a pine tree.

And it’s not the wind and water that wears you down, it’s the carried detritus, the salts, and the overthinking.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Red Herring

As is often the case, I have been using a turn of phrase for many years without understanding the origins of it. In this instance, I’m referring to the expression “red herring,” as used to describe a purposeful distraction.

Living with my island girl, I am much more sensitive to these odd snippets we often throw around in our English language. They can prove confounding to her. After using the phrase the other day, it occurred to me that I had no way of explaining it.

Time to activate the Google Machine.

Turns out, according to the machine, the phrase “red herring” emerged from an actual fish, a herring that’s been heavily salted and smoked until it turns reddish-brown and develops a powerful odor.

The muscular scent is key. A popular story claims these stinky fish were dragged across trails to throw hunting dogs off the scent, but the historical evidence for that tale is pretty thin. English journalist William Cobbett helped popularize the expression in 1807 when he used a supposed childhood experience with a red herring as a metaphor for misleading news reports. Today, a red herring still stands as anything that distracts us from the real issue.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Old Man

While walking down my country road, an old man with a gray beard and long gray hair drove up on his four-wheeler and stopped beside me.

I spoke: “You know, when we were kids throwing rocks around East Helena and setting vacant fields on fire, I never imagined I’d one day see you driving up on me as an old man.”

My good buddy and lakeshore neighbor Kevin laughed from atop his machine.

—Mitchell Hegman