The Prodigal Chipmunk

Yesterday, I live-trapped two more chipmunks in our never-ending scheme to reduce the looting of Desiree's flowers and exotic (at least to our prairie) vegetables planted around our house. I noticed the second caught critter ping-ponging around inside the trap at midday.

"Jeez," I said when I picked up the trap, "you need to chill before you have a mini chipmunk heart attack. I am just going to drive you down the road and let you go."

After picking up the trap, I headed back into the house as a shortcut to the garage. "Tell you what," I said to the trapped critter, "I'll turn you into the prodigal chipmunk and give you a big adventure."

With that said, I gave it a quick tour of the dining room and kitchen, explaining things. "We call that a table. Those are chairs. Check out the LED lights. Nice, right?" When we got to my laptop, I hovered the trap near the screen. "That's a computer. You're not likely to see one of those again."

A few minutes later, we found ourselves over a mile down the road, where I released the prodigal chipmunk into a knot of tall sagebrush. "Just consider this," I said as the chipmunk vanished into the tangles. "The latest theories suggest we may all be nothing more than minor players in a grand simulation."

The Prodigal Chipmunk

—Mitchell Hegman

From Which Came the Earth

The Maya imagined that before there were mountains to climb or fields to till, before dry land lay beneath the first person's feet, there existed only an endless sea. Upon these restless primordial waters drifted a vast crocodilian creature. This ancient beast was not merely an inhabitant of the deep but was, in the end, the very stuff from which our earthen world would emerge. The creator gods subdued this monster and divided its great form into the features of the Earth itself. From its flanks came the forests. From its back emerged the mountain chains.

In this scenario, the Rocky Mountain basin in which I live might have been a small crease someplace on the back of this primeval beast.

I'm not opposed to this idea.

Mayan Ruins

—Mitchell Hegman

Flunking Another Test

Welp, I flunked another basic human intelligence test. This one involves the process of grinding your own coffee. The idea behind grinding coffee is fairly straightforward: you drop whole pre-roasted beans into a grinder, press a button, and the grinder reduces the beans to grounds that collect in a receiving vessel below.

Thing is, there are no honest shortcuts here. You can’t grind coffee if you forget to drop in the beans. You get nothing if you neglect to press the button. And you produce a grand mess if you forget to place the receiving vessel below the grinder.

So, as you might have surmised from the photograph I shared, I neglected to place the vessel below the grinder before I pressed the button and fluttered off to find some potato chips, which I should not be eating. The photograph features what I found when I returned to the task at hand.

My Coffee Mess

—Mitchell Hegman

America (An Explanation)

Let me tell you about America. To begin, we have an inordinate number of actors, realtors, car salesmen, and oilmen. We also have a few cowboys. One of the cowboys once stepped inside a café where I was eating breakfast and teased our good-looking waitress. That occurred in a town named Wisdom. Wisdom is just down the road, a statement that has a nice, distinct ring to it. Wisdom, Montana, and West Yellowstone, Montana, seem perpetually to compete to provide America's coldest temperature during the daily winter weather reports.

America: the nation.

America is a great military force. Some of our forces are presently hovering over a country called Iran, which, coincidentally, has a few oilmen and lots of oil.

We, I mean America, again, also landed men on the moon and returned them home. On a smaller scale, we sometimes carefully cut women open and insert fake boobs in them. Long before this stuff, some of our soldiers chased Indian men, women, and children across mostly barren plains. Just up the road a spell (as they like to say here) is the Big Hole National Battlefield. At that location, in August of 1877, the Nez Perce fought against the 7th Infantry Regiment.

In other words, they fought against America.

As an American, I like birds.

—Mitchell Hegman

Stuck With a Memory

I struggle to recall names. I can’t remember why I go from room to room. Yet I recall with perfect clarity the long-past midnight hour, many years ago, when my two cats and I chased a mouse from kitchen to living room and back again, me with a large cooking pot into which I eventually scooped the mouse.

Of what value is this clear memory when I land in my kitchen today having forgotten my purpose?

—Mitchell Hegman

The Good Mother

When I arrived at the cabin on Saturday, I ejected from the truck and snuck through the firs and pines to shut down the game camera and retrieve the memory card. I took only a few paces before something stopped me in my tracks. A ruffed grouse basically flung itself at my feet and then began wobbling about with flared wings, acting as if wounded.

I know this routine. I was witnessing a good mother at work. She wanted to garner my attention and lead me away from her babies.

“I got you,” I assured the grouse. “I just need to get to the game camera.” Upon taking two more steps, I saw her tiny babies popcorning through the tall grass twenty or so feet to my left. After seeing them, I purposefully drifted to my left and stopped.

“Gather your kids,” I said evenly. “I’ll wait here for a bit.”

I allowed Mother Grouse to press on ahead of me so she could gather her chicks and ghost back into the forest understory.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Raven’s Demands

Apparently, I've done something to stir the local ravens into action. Whenever I'm outside the house watering trees, splitting wood for the coming winter, or merely wandering around having conversations with the flowers, they soon appear around me. A half dozen of them, perching on the solar array, swirling in a wide circle nearby, or settling like black flags in the nearby pines. All of them croaking or cawing incessantly, as if they've just realized I sometimes call them greasy birds.

Or might they be voicing demands? Maybe they want a raven-only birdbath with a decent view of the lake below. Perhaps they're insisting I wear paisley print shirts again (which I am willing to do). Or could it be they're urging me to be less friendly to snakes? And sometimes they sound like gravelly kazoos, which confounds me completely.

I don't grasp ravenspeak. I do, however, now understand why little birds so often mob them to chase them the hell away.

—Mitchell Hegman