Cooling Down

It’s a full hour before the robins will bribe the sun with their quickest song. The sky remains as still as solid stone and colored Wedgwood blue. My back door is open, and I’ve flung open the windows like clams. Near the door and two windows, floor fans whir with firm insistence.

I’m sitting on my sofa under wan light, allowing the mountain air to rush in and lay cool hands on me. I close my eyes and think of the snowcapped peaks west of me, and of the monkey flowers I found nodding along the bounce-and-run Arrastra Creek on my last mountain drive.

I’ve never been fond of summer’s heat, and this hour before sunrise is entirely mine. I have this hour, and perhaps two more, to draw in cool air so I may face another scorching day. The cool air has a weight I desire.

—Mitchell Hegman

Road Hazards

Certain inputs tend to stick with me longer than they should.

If, for instance, I happen to wake up to a song, that song will rattle about in my head for the rest of the day. Or if I find a big spider on the floor, every suspicious spot or motion in the house registers as a spider for the next several hours.

Recently, I had to have new tires put on my car because when I tried to have the existing tires rotated, the technician discovered they were coming apart where the tread meets the sidewall. “You need to get new tires right away,” he suggested. “Chunks are missing from one of them.”

That’s a pretty big input.

Within a few hours, new tires were mounted on my car. Now, at least for the short term, my driving experience has been altered. Every time I drive up behind another vehicle, I’m scoping out the tires.

I just know there is trouble out there.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Broom

It’s fair to say that I had no role in either inventing or improving the broom, but there’s substantial evidence to suggest that I may have created several new reasons to need one.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Snake Skeleton

While walking along our country road, I spotted something off-color in the nearby sagebrush and bunchgrass that drew my attention. As is perpetually my habit, I drifted over for a closer inspection.

Well, you don’t see that every day.

At the base of a sandy anthill, I found the skeleton of a snake, likely a bullsnake, its countless vertebrae and ribs laid out like cursive writing that had been hacked to pieces.

A macabre end for a life that most other critters, many humans included, don’t appreciate. Snakes live a tough life. For one thing, fear of snakes is nearly universal. Also, consider how they are forever wed to gravity, with neither wings nor legs to free them for even an instant. And here in Montana, they must hide away for half the year in hibernation.

I could not even begin to guess what events delivered the snake to this end.

I suppose my neighbor Kevin and I are odd in preferring to have bullsnakes around. They do a lot to keep the mouse population in check. Just the other day, he called me to tell me he'd spotted a five-footer at the lakeshore. "We'll need to tell everyone they may see it and they need to leave it alone," I cautioned.

In our way of thinking, a dead bullsnake is of no value.

Snake Skeleton

—Mitchell Hegman

The Mighty Mo

The Missouri River is both beautiful and restless.

Most rivers in North America have their directions firmly sorted out. They head south, east, or west with little hesitation. The Missouri, however, begins in the Rocky Mountains at Three Forks, Montana, promptly turns north for a considerable distance, then thinks better of it, swings east across the Great Plains, and finally hooks south to join the Mississippi River on its long journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

The "Mighty Mo," as we sometimes call it, is the longest river in the United States, stretching about 2,341 miles. The river officially begins where the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin Rivers converge. A drop of water beginning its journey at Three Forks will travel nearly 3,700 miles before it reaches saltwater.

My life has been spent traipsing along the handsome upper reaches of the river, from the headwaters to Great Falls. Yesterday, Desiree and I drove the frontage road along the stretch of river between Ulm and Wolf Creek. It turns out this is her favorite drive in all of Montana. She loves the winding waterway, the mountains marching alongside, the bridges, the towering riverside cliffs drinking from the eddied water, the lavish homes perched on ledges above, and the swirls of birds filling the skies.

We stopped at several places to fill our smartphone cameras with images.

The Open River and Mountains Beyond

Fishermen Amid the Cliffs

—Mitchell Hegman

The Ant Thing

I have no quarrel with ants. They don't eat my apples, tunnel through Desiree's flower garden, or leave bear-sized footprints around the cabin. They simply go about their business with a seriousness that would make a tax auditor proud.

I've occasionally watched one struggling across the driveway with something impossibly large balanced over its head. A pine needle. Half a grasshopper. A crumb of unknown origin. The little brute seems entirely unconcerned that its burden outweighs it many times over.

Consider.

If an ant were the size of a human, it could lift a pickup truck. It could carry a small car on its back or drag a loaded moving van. It could bite through wood, climb the side of a skyscraper without hesitation, and, if its speed scaled with its stride, race down the interstate at well over 100 miles per hour. An ant, in a single leap, could clear an entire football field. It could tumble from a towering height, stand up, dust itself off, and continue on its way.

We should probably count ourselves lucky that ants never scaled up to such a size. There would be no live-trapping them and hauling them out to the woods. At that point, I'd probably just move.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Horace Said

Horace (65 to 8 BC) wrote as Rome shed its republic and became an empire under Augustus.

Amid political upheaval, he found wisdom in moderation, friendship, and the passing day.

His compact observations have echoed across two thousand years of human experience.

Following are three of his quotes:

—   “It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.”

—   “Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow.”

—   “One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.”

—Mitchell Hegman