Prescribed Burn

On an average year, something between 300,000 and 500,000 acres in Montana end up scorched by wildfires. In 2017, Montana recorded 1.4 million acres burned, which is the most acreage lost to wildfires in a single modern recorded year in state history (not accounting for the historic Great Fire of 1910, which burned roughly 3 million acres across Montana and Idaho).

Worse than this, fires have the capability to sweep through the most modern of cities. Just this year, a fire ravaged a neighborhood in Spokane, Washington.

One leg of prevention is controlled fires, more aptly tagged as “prescribed burns,” owing to the fact that fires can be only marginally controlled, and calling them controlled is a bit over-optimistic.

Yesterday, a prescribed burn was initiated behind Mount Helena. It’s jarring to be driving around Helena while smoke billows up from a wide sweep of land just beyond the city.

Hopefully, the wind will remain settled and this fire remains only a half-threat. I have posted a photograph Desiree captured as we drove through town.

Prescribed Burn Near Mount Helena

—Mitchell Hegman

On the Loose

Yesterday, three of my neighbor’s longhorn cattle broke through a section of fence and made their way in the general direction of my place. Fortunately, Tad, my lakeshore neighbor, caught wind of this. Before long, we joined a couple people from the place next door and hazed the cattle back to where they belonged.

I’m no cowboy, and only a few minutes of pushing cattle will cure most people, including me, of wanting to be one. At the same time, I must admit, longhorns look rather cool under the Big Sky.

Longhorns Back Where They Belong

—Mitchell Hegman

On the Other Hand

We are pretty smart standing here at the thinnest edge of a new century. We now have the capability to compute our way through skyscraper-sized columns of mathematical formulas in nanoseconds. We can flick spacecraft to Mars and beyond. We trick tomatoes and cucumbers into thinking they are dimension lumber and first cousins to insecticides. We have turned sound into a tool that can see the complex inside of once-impenetrable solid objects. We fashion heavy metals into fluff. But an old-fashioned range fire still kicks our ass.

—Mitchell Hegman

Another Year of Bad Practices

On something of an annual basis, I prove that having food and drink in the living room is a really bad idea. As it so happens, I did this just yesterday by flipping a fresh bowl of salad upside down on the sofa.

Wow. That’s a surprisingly competent mess.

But there it is: a good reminder that eating salad on the sofa is a bad idea.

Thanks for that.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I should be hooked up for another year of bad practices.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Salamander in the Mousetrap

As someone who by nature requires declaring a favorite in most every category, I will now declare that the Western tiger salamander is my favorite amphibian. They are not reptiles, in spite of dressing up to look like one. Salamanders typically have moist, porous skin, giving them a smooth, almost silky appearance.

Western tiger salamanders range throughout Montana on the eastern side of the Continental Divide. According to the Montana Field Guide: Adults are found in virtually any habitat, providing there is a terrestrial substrate suitable for burrowing and a body of water nearby suitable for breeding.

Adult western tiger salamanders are shy by disposition and tend to remain underground in burrows in prairie or agricultural habitats and only emerge for any length of time to breed in the water available to them. They make their living by climbing down in these holes and eating insects and worms.

I mention all of this in light of the fact that yesterday I caught a Western tiger salamander in one of the live mousetraps I set near my hot tub outside the back door. Fortunately, the salamander was unharmed, and I was able to release it and let it go along its way.

I have shared images of the salamander in question. Naturally, I also captured a photograph of the salamander alongside a Cold Smoke beer for a sense of scale.

Salamander Closeup

Salamander in the Trap

Posed with a Cold Smoke Beer

—Mitchell Hegman

Two Random Thoughts

 Thought #1: I wish to be at the very place where wind takes pause, where thoughts have muscles and teeth and claws.

Thought #2: How much can be explained by the fact that we are the overfed products of a naturally isolated gene pool?

—Mitchell Hegman

Winter Negotiations

One thing you learn early is that no matter the season declared by the calendar, you don’t wander far from your heavy coat here in Montana. We don't really have four seasons in the standard sense of those. Around here, it’s more fractured negotiations between winter and everything else, with winter getting regular allowances across the board. As I have mentioned before, I have seen snow at my house on the valley floor every month of the year, including July and August.

I mention this in light of the fact that we are now descending into cooling temperatures over the next few days. Some of you may want to start snuggling your coat. At a minimum, all of us should locate one.

For any newcomers: Welcome to Montana.

—Mitchell Hegman