Pick-up Sticks

Between pine beetle infestations and raucous windstorms, many of the surrounding forests are filled with fallen trees. This includes the Forest Service property adjoining the parcel for my cabin. That particular forest is comprised primarily of lodgepole pine.

Nature has not been kind.

The forest looks more like a giant pile of pick-up sticks. The lodgepoles have crashed down crosswise against each other, stacking high and making it nearly impossible to walk through. For the last few years, I have been sawing much of my firewood from this patch of timber. I have carved a clear swath through the mess and gradually worked my way up a fairly gentle slope. But the rounds are dry and easy to manage.

Honestly, I enjoy my time cutting into the downfall. I’ve always enjoyed anything that presses me harder against my mountains. I’m sharing a photograph of the forest and my truck filled with rounds.

My Truck Filled with Rounds

The Pick-up Sticks Forest

—Mitchell Hegman

Swarming Bees

Yesterday at midday, when I stopped to check my mail, I discovered honey bees swarming on the cluster of mailboxes. Bees are generally not looking for trouble and are not aggressive when swarming, so I was able to open my box and retrieve my mail.

Swarming is how a colony reproduces, a process in which the entire society splits in two.

The triggers for swarming typically appear in the spring when the hive becomes crowded and nectar is flowing. The workers feel congestion, rising heat, and an recognize an abundance of resources. A sense that they are strong enough to divide washes through the hive.

To prepare for a new colony, the worker bees begin raising new queens by feeding select larvae an all-royal jelly diet. At the same time, they slim down the current queen by feeding her less, making her light enough to fly. Normally, she’s a regal homebody, not a traveler.

On a warm day, often in the late morning, the hive reaches a tipping point, and the old queen leaves the hive, taking 30 to 70 percent of the workers with her. They pour out in a thick cloud, then gather again nearby, usually forming a hanging cluster.

Scout bees then head out to find a new home, sometimes miles away. They return and “dance” to argue their case, and through this democratic process, the swarm eventually lifts off and relocates, with the old queen once again laying eggs and producing a thriving colony.

Back at the old hive, a new queen rises to resume normal activity there.

When I drove past the mailbox array in the late evening, the gathering of bees was gone.

Bees Swarming the Mailbox Array

A Gathering

—Mitchell Hegman

A Cascade of Flowers

The Southeast Valley Honeybees, after several years of absence, have laid claim to our Mayday tree, now in full bloom. The entire tree hums and vibrates with the sound of dozens upon dozens of bees.

Nothing in my northland world outdoes a Mayday tree in the production of pearly white flowers. It doesn’t scatter its blossoms like loose change; it gathers them into long, crowded tassels, turning each branch into a chandelier, if not a floral waterfall, of small blooms. Mayday trees also bloom early and produce a sweet, beckoning scent, boosting the odds of pollination before other trees and ground flowers even get off the starting line to compete.

Yesterday, at midday, I wandered out and stood beneath the Mayday, a halo of blossoms and bees above me.

If not heaven, close.

Desiree and the Mayday Tree in Bloom

A Bee at Work

—Mitchell Hegman

The Holding Pen

Almost every plant-eating critter loves to munch on quaking aspen. The tender leaves and emerging buds are especially tasty. And in the snow-swirled depths of winter, when forage is scarce, these four-legged customers will strip bark for a meal. Additionally, aspen make excellent antler-rubbing posts. If you intend to plant a sapling in deer, elk, or moose country, you need to provide fencing around it.

Yesterday, Desiree and I purchased two super tall, skinny quaking aspen saplings. One will eventually find a home near our cabin; the other will be planted near our hot tub just outside our back door. Read “deer country” here.

To protect the saplings before planting, we placed them in a protective holding pen. During the summer, the pen serves as a fenced-in garden spot. I should note that I have a sketchy record with aspen trees. Throughout their range, aspen are attractive targets for pathogens and insects. Two aspens I previously planted at the cabin succumbed to blight.

Still, aspen have a hushed stubbornness about them. They send up new shoots, try again, and then try once more. With a bit of luck and a little protection, perhaps these two will grasp the earth where I plant them and decide to stay.

Desiree Pushing the Trees Toward Our Truck.

Aspen in the Holding Pen

—Mitchell Hegman

Our Requirements for Survival

Desiree and I watched a couple of episodes of Naked and Afraid. In one, the male survivalist tapped out after only three days of the 21-day challenge, leaving a young woman on her own. Thankfully, she thrived and made it to extraction day.

Desiree and I discussed what it would take for us to make it past three days. For me, survival would hinge on two non-negotiables: footwear and coffee. I would need to fashion a respectable pair of shoes out of bark or hide, and then, somehow, locate a coffee bush in whatever uncooperative corner of the planet I’d been dropped into.

Desiree’s requirements are, if anything, more exacting. She would need to successfully forage and assemble all the necessary ingredients to prepare a proper dish of pancit noodles.

We have our needs.

—Mitchell Hegman

Roughing It

My late wife and I purchased our mountain property in 2000. Over the next few years, we worked out plans and finances for a cabin, and began building in phases.

The key word here is “cabin.” I had in mind something small and simple. Maybe even rustic. I briefly considered an A-frame, then let that idea wander off into the trees.

“Simple” never made it onto the final prints. Before long, we had something that looks suspiciously like a second home. Just last year, Desiree and I finished the loft. Yesterday, we wired up a big-screen TV to fiber internet, better than what I get at home, and spent the afternoon in the loft watching music videos on YouTube.

So this, apparently, is our version of roughing it.

I’m posting a photograph of Desiree from our time in the loft.

Desiree “Roughing It”

—Mitchell Hegman

My Place in the World

When I was a kid, my mother had to drag me, squirming and sniveling, to the bath or shower. In my reckoning, it was a waste of time. Besides, I earned every speck of dirt I wore.

Welp, over the years, there’s been a radical reversal. I now find showering downright pleasurable, especially at the cabin. I love showering there. It’s a mountain luxury, and for some reason, the water feels warmer. After a day of cutting firewood, poking along the chill creek, or tending a campfire, it lands like a soft massage. And considering we went the first fifteen years of our long cabin-building process without a shower or hot water, I don’t take it for granted.

Frankly, I hate getting out of the cabin’s shower once I start. Yesterday, I stepped in after a late afternoon of sawing Douglas fir rounds.

Pure heaven.

After a while, I called out, “Hey, Desi, grab my phone and come here, please.” When she arrived, I asked her to take a G-rated picture of me in the shower. “This is my place in the world,” I said.

Today, it’s my pleasure to share it with you.

Me in the Cabin Shower

—Mitchell Hegman