The Mystery Plant

 Life will always try.

Yesterday, I opened a completely closed bucket of topsoil I had set aside in my garage a few weeks ago and discovered that a seed of some sort had germinated and started to grow inside.

The soil is from a local nursery and is of uncertain origin. The plant start potentially looks like it might be a Russian thistle, but it could also be some sort of evergreen. After indelicately unearthing the poor thing, I actually felt a little guilty.

The plant was trying its best. The least I could do was give it a chance. With that, I gathered up the skinny little thing, poked it into some soil in a cup, and gave it a dash of water. Hopefully, I can successfully save and nurture the plant so I might one day identify it and share a photograph of it alongside a Cold Smoke beer.

The Mystery Plant

Planted in a Cup

The Bucket

—Mitchell Hegman

Recycling Glass

The adult in me never survives a trip to recycle at our local trash transfer station. I’m fine (read properly adulting) while stuffing cardboard in the bins. And dropping off my aluminum and steel cans is just another humdrum activity that tips me in no particular direction.

And then there is the glass: recycling bottles and jars.

To recycle glass, you “deposit” your bottles and jars in a huge metal container. This is where the ten-year-old me pushes the mature me off the proverbial cliff and takes over.

Deposit is NOT the word I would use for what I do.

I’m a ten and intend to go full-on Viking raid with this mission. My goals are twofold. First, I need to make a big, noisy production out of throwing away my bottles. Secondly, the object is to break as much glass as possible as I fire my stuff into the receptacle.

Had this recycling system been in place when I was a kid, I would have thrived and become a full-on recycle warrior. As I told a woman carrying a tub of bottles toward the glass container as I left empty-handed yesterday, “Glass is the fun part of recycling.”

Glass Recycling Container 

—Mitchell Hegman

Observation #366

We need to remember that we are all merely human. Except for Keith Richards. I’m not sure exactly what he is.

Photo: WSJ 

—Mitchell Hegman

Lemon Tree Update, May 7, 2026

I’ve not posted a lemon tree update for quite a spell. Frankly, I’m mad at the lemon tree. It has yet to bloom or produce a lemon. Apparently, its main purpose is to function as a host for spider mites.

It’s very good at that.

A month ago, we pruned the lemon tree back as part of an effort to combat the latest mite infestation. The tree did pop back to life and is now growing rather explosively, but it remains without even the hint of a blossom.

Our calamansi lime tree, on the other hand, is a showboat of blossoms and fruit production. We’ve been plucking limes from it for months, and now it’s blooming wholesale. Though calamansi are the toy version of limes, only growing to the size of grapes, they are packed with flavor and are a must when preparing authentic Filipino cuisine.

I’m happy to have at least one cooperative tree.

I am posting a photograph of the lemon tree, with a Cold Smoke beer as a reference for size, and the calamansi lime tree with the same beer. I am also sharing a photograph of lime blossoms, which are milky and sweet.

The Lemon Tree (With a Cold Smoke)

The Calamansi Lime (With a Cold Smoke)

Calamansi Blossoms

—Mitchell Hegman

Springtime in Montana

Spring does not tell Montana what to do with the weather. The trees may be in bloom and the tulips standing tall, but if Montana feels like dropping twenty-some-degree temperatures on May 6 and frosting everything in sight, that is exactly what it will do.

So we answer in kind, tucking in our flowers for the night and turning up the heat inside.

—Mitchell Hegman

Fencing Logic

There are plenty of decisions to make when building a fence. You have to decide where it will run, what materials to use, where to place gates, and how tall it needs to be. A short fence works fine if you are keeping a toy poodle in, but if you are trying to keep deer out of a yard or garden, you need something much taller.

Desiree and I are building a tall chain-link fence to keep deer out of a section of our yard. One final detail remained: how far off the ground to hold the bottom of the fence. That one was easy. About two inches. It gives my weed-eater string room to work and leaves a quick escape route for any snake I might run into near the fence. Where I live, this is a serious consideration.

Posts for our New Fence

—Mitchell Hegman

100 Years Ago

There is every possibility that, 100 years ago, your grandparents were partying and closing down the bars on Saturday nights. Well, if not your grandparents, mine.

—Mitchell Hegman