Colstrip, Montana

Colstrip, Montana, is located in the southeast corner of Montana.  The landscape surrounding is comprised of rimrock sandstone formations, elevated flats, and grassy bottoms.  Most importantly, this is coal country.  For better and for worse, coal provided most of the energy during the early stages of the industrial revolution and is only now being fully supplanted by other sources of energy.

Colstrip grew out of the need for coal.

Colstrip was originally a “company town,” established in the early 1920’s by the Northern Pacific Railway.  The company created the town to provide a place for processing coal needed for their steam locomotives.  The bituminous coal came from just south of town, where huge draglines stripped away the soil on the surface to access rich beds of coal below.

“In 1959,” according to Wikipedia, “Montana Power Company purchased the rights to the mine and the town, and resumed mining operations in the 1970s with plans to build coal-fired electrical plants.”  In the time since, power plants have been towering over the small town and operating on coal from mines in the area.  The 2010 census listed a population of 2,214.  Colstrip is the largest city in Rosebud County with 24% of the total population.

In early January of this year, Colstrip’s power Unit 1 shut down.  Unit 2 followed only a short time later.  Units 3 and 4 are still running and expected to operate until at least 2027.

I woke this morning inside a sleeping room in Colstrip.   I am here teaching two days of classes for the plant electricians.

I must say, Colstrip is a clean and pleasant place.

—Mitchell Hegman

Classical Gas

Jim Stafford: Both funny and skilled:

 

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU_a5ObBXzA

Knot as it Seams

Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different meanings. Homophones are homonyms that also sound alike and have different meanings, but have different spellings.  The English language is filled with both of these twisted little monsters. 

Following is a plaything I made with such monsters:

She realized, after she red his letter 

and sipped her glass of read whine

that for her, love was dun.

No more a white night

come to rescue.

His tall hoarse gone over pastel hills.

And she now rightfully left to pine alone 

in October’s bed of fallen leaves.

She whaled from the shore of a small lake:

 

“Love is merely a lie ability...

the week left to suffer...”

Her emotions jumbled, ruptured,

but knot making scents.

—Mitchell Hegman

Real

I wake in the pre-dawn amid a swirl of stars in the indigo heavens.  Stars hover silently just outside my opened bedroom window.  Stars nest in the nearby bullpine and rest atop the array of mountains beyond.  A coyote reports from, a distant ravine.

I must get up now.  Before first light.

I need to be there, with a cup of coffee in hand, when the first songbird cheep-cheeps from within the canopy of my Mayday tree.

This is real only if I am there.

—Mitchell Hegman

Thousands of Reasons

I and my late wife purchased our cabin property in the year 2000.  Our path to finding and purchasing the property proved long and frustrating.  To begin, Uyen and I had exacting requirements.  We wanted property supporting a creek with trout, with at least one border adjoining forest service holdings, and easy access by any automobile.

I will spare you the long list of properties and issues we encountered.  We looked for months and months.  In July of 2000 we rode with some friends down through the upper Blackfoot Valley while on our way to Big Fork for a weekend stay.  Before we left our house, Uyen had printed a couple photos and a crude map for another property.  As we neared the turnoff to the property, Uyen told our friends about it and suggested we might swing in for a look.

“That’s okay,” I told my friend (who was driving), “we don’t need to stop.”  I didn’t want to put them out of the way and, truthfully, I was beginning to doubt we would ever find what we wanted.

“I want to see the property,” my friend said.  “Besides, I have to pee.”

We turned off highway 200 and soon entered the forest.  The deeper we drove into the forest, the more I liked what I saw.  A bit over a mile later we reached the realtor’s sign.  A bridge across a creek led into the property.  We pulled off the main road, stopped just shy of the bridge, and climbed out of the truck. 

Uyen and I walked out onto the center of the bridge.  “This creek is on the property?” I asked.

“Yes.  Over six-hundred feet runs through.  Forest service on two sides.”

I literally spun around at the center of the bridge.  Though we were in the midst of severe drought, I smelled water.  In the meadow and surrounding forest understory, I saw flowers.  Thousands of them: fleabane, fireweed, sticky geranium, on others.  Thousands or reasons to purchase the property.

“This is it,” I said.

Uyen smiled and in her cute accent said, “Dis it.”

Within a few days we made an offer on the parcel.

Yesterday, before leaving the cabin for home, I wandered the property.  I found myself marveled by the proliferation of wildflowers.

Posted today are some of the thousands of reasons I fell in love with the property.

Lady’s Slipper Orchid

Lupine

Paintbrush and Lupine

Iris in the Meadow

—Mitchell Hegman

Morning Report from the Cabin

I arrived at my cabin yesterday morning, worked on my latest project (see the photograph below), and overnighted here so I can continue my project this morning after coffee and breakfast.

I had a visitor yesterday afternoon.  One of my upstream cabin neighbors stopped in so I could listen to him.  We got pretty close to a regular back-and-forth conversation, but he likes to talk.   I did my due diligence and listened.

Here is what I learned:  My neighbor had both hips replaced at once.  His recovery took three months.  He also had his neck fused and had a cancerous spot removed from his nose.  I learned the names of some neighbors he does not like.  His son is battling an unknown, fatiguing illness.  He struggles a little with saying the word “ombudsman.”

Good stuff, providing you are an avid listener.  And, honestly, I am pleased he stopped in.  Otherwise it’s just me, Chip (the chipmunk), and the creek (which also chatters day and night).

In the early evening, a thunder and lightning storm sat directly on top of my cabin and thrummed at the roof and walls.  By dusk, the storm had lifted and tiny winged insects began conducting inspections of the entire forest around me.

The insects didn’t need my help, so, I crashed for the night.

Wearing My Eye Protection

—Mitchell Hegman

Mistrust

Following is a list of things I mistrust:

Surefire investments

German shepherd dogs

Inexpensive thermometers

First impressions

Ravens

Car salesmen with nicknames

Wooden step-ladders

Microwave safe plastics

—Mitchell Hegman

A Fine Balance

I am, by nature, a curious person.  I tend to have a lot of questions about stuff.

I am also a practical person and, therefore, have a lot of wine on hand.  A glass of wine quiets me down.

Between these two traits, I believe a fine balance might be struck.

—Mitchell Hegman

Books, Mountains, and Wildflowers

When I struck the age of nineteen, a wholly irrational, albeit consuming, fear of death gripped me.  I could not cease thinking about death.  I obsessed over my own inevitable demise.

What, I wondered, had I done to deserve a death sentence?  What ransom might I pay to reverse this?  How soon the journey’s end?  What trigger will release the trap to eventually snatch me away?

Somewhere in my shuffling through all these morbid questions, I picked up books and began to read.   Soon, I began to shed my doldrums within the thoughtscapes of better thinkers.  I read the poetry of Sylvia Plath, Richard Hugo, and the lines of lesser-known poets littering each small press issue I found in bookstores.  I scratched into the Bible.  I read through Tolkien, Pearl S. Buck, Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Dorothy Parker, and even attempted to wade into Russian literature.

I left Montana for Indiana and then almost as quickly turned around and came back home to where mountains kicked at the sky.  I began to take long drives on the mountain roads.

In the mountains, a new life came to me.  I paid attention as small birds stitched through the air alongside my car.  I walked out into earthy-scented meadows and climbed timbered slopes.  I was taken, especially, by the wildflowers tumbling down from the higher elevations.

I made it my quest to learn the names of every flower I found: lupine, paintbrush,  shootingstar, balsamroot, arnica, sticky geranium, yarrow, gaillardia, fleabane, queen’s cup, and mountain forget-me-not.

The names of the flowers became a kind of lovely music in my head.

And the mountains soon surrounded me—no longer allowing the sky to crush me.  The clouds began to roll over before me like pet dogs.

To hell, then, with death.

To hell with death so long as you have books to read and mountain roads to follow.

Life is not an invention.  It is a discovery.

—Mitchell Hegman

Haunted by Small Birds

Not sure why, but I got to thinking about ghosts while I was pouring seeds into my birdfeeder at the front of the house.  A chickadee landed on the feeder even as I stood there replenishing the seeds.

And I thought to myself: I wonder if chickadees can become ghosts.

Think about that.  How scary would the ghost of a chickadee be?

Not scary.

Maybe a cute ghost.

—Mitchell Hegman

This Blog Is Not About Bluebirds

Every year, on this blog, I record and report my first returned bluebird sighting in early spring.  I have been recording the arrival dates of the bluebirds in my personal journals since the mid-1990’s.  This yearly exercise is frivolous but quietly satisfying at the same time.

This blog is not about bluebirds.

I wrote that blog on March 9 of this year.

In more recent years, I have been documenting the yearly flourish of ball cactus blooming on the prairie surrounding my house.  They are known locally as pincushion cactus.  More importantly, the blossoms of the ball cactus are easily the brightest flowers to bloom on our prairie.

They glow like electrified beacons.

When you first see one of the glowing cacti, your instinct is to look for an attached extension cord so you can follow the cord back to where it is plugged into a receptacle providing power for making the blossom so vivid.

Well, the time has come.

Beacons are beginning to glow across the prairie.

Posted is a photograph of a ball cactus on display this year.

—Mitchell Hegman

And Then Gone

The other day I chanced upon a list of the final words spoken by some notable people before their passing.  Following are a few that particularly struck me:

Vladimir Nabokov, writer of the book Lolita, was also an entomologist.  He was particularly interested in butterflies. His last words: “A certain butterfly is already on the wing.”

Emily Dickinson, the famous American poet, said this before dying: “I must go in, for the fog is rising.”

Buddy Rich, the renowned jazz drummer, died following surgery.  As he was being prepped for the surgery, a nurse asked him, “Is there anything you can’t take?” Rich replied, “Yeah, country music.”

—Mitchell Hegman

The Names of Fish

I have fished for trout my entire life, but only recently learned the names of the sexes for these fish.

A male trout is referred to as a cock trout.

The female is called a hen.

I also caught a lot of sucker fish while fishing.

I wonder, what do you call a male sucker?

—Mitchell Hegman

At the Gate

I did something shockingly stupid.

For all you ‘masters of the pun’ already imagining an electrical accident…  Nope.  Not even close.

While driving in the high mountains yesterday, my buddy and I encountered a barb wire gate that needed to be opened so we could continue our descent down a meandering mountain road.  As the passenger in our rig, I hopped out and opened the gate.  As soon as the truck drove through, I closed the gate.

That’s where the stupid comes into play.

I actually closed the gate while standing on the wrong side of the fence (the side from which we approached it).  Rather than opening and closing the gate again after walking through, I climbed over the fence to join the journey once more.

“I was going to ask you about the way you were closing the gate,” my buddy said as I approached the truck again.  “But I was thinking you had a reason.”

“Nope.  No reason.  Just stupid.  You’re welcome to share with others.  I deserve it.”

We drove on.

Even given my off-moment at the fence, I had a great day.  Posted are four photographs I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.

One of Several Hexagon-Shaped Rocks We Found

False Solomon’s Seal

Water in a Leaf Catchment

Paintbrush and Arnica

—Mitchell Hegman

Talking to Myself

The response to the Covid-19 pandemic has left me a bit more isolated and alone than normal.  Prior to this, I occasionally talked to myself when I was alone.

Over the last two months, I have been talking to myself in a somewhat constant fashion.  More importantly, I have been listening to myself.   And, in listening, I made a startling discovery.

I am annoying.

—Mitchell Hegman

Wrong

If storming from room to room within my house, naked, while singing “I’m a Yankee doodle dandy” is wrong…well, I guess I don’t want to be right.

And, most importantly, I have my reasons.

—Mitchell Hegman

Dodging a Bullet

Apparently, we have dodged a bullet. 

I am talking about the candiru fish (sometimes called a toothpick fish).  The candiru is a small parasitic catfish found in the fresh waters of the Amazon Basin.  In simple terms, this fish is a kind of leach—a blood-sucking vampire.

Worse, the fish is said to follow the urine streams of men urinating in the water so it can enter the urethra of a man’s penis.  Once inside the penis, the fish fastens itself in place with barbs so it can go to work.

The first time I heard about this fish, I had two thoughts.  First, my buddy who owns a swimming pool, would love to stock some of those in his swimming pool for those times when boys are swimming.  Second, maybe I have been hanging onto myself (so to speak) during times of duress for good reason.

According to bbc.com: “German botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius was the first European to document candirus in the Amazon. He described how local men tied their urethras shut when spending time around the water.”

Cutting to the chase here, it seems the stories of candiru fish entering the penis are mostly exaggerated.  There was, however, one incident documented in 1997.  That year, an unfortunate man from Manaus, a city in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, was wheeled into an emergency with a candiru in his urethra.

Investigations of that story have led to skepticism.

In the end, pun fully intended, the candiru fish does not seen near as threatening to a man’s penis as myth might suggest.

Jungle spiders, on the other hand, are real.

Candiru Fish

—Mitchell Hegman

Bird Identification

I have had a productive year at my birdfeeder.  Along with attracting my standard supply of chickadees, pine siskins, and house finches, I have been hosting a lot of goldfinches and the occasional western tanager or lazuli bunting.

A new kind of bird appeared at my feeder yesterday.  I managed a few photographs with my smarter-than-me-phone before it vanished.  I am wondering if someone can help me identify this bird.  I have posted two photographs for use in identification.

—Mitchell Hegman

Naked and Crazy

I watched another episode of Naked and Afraid last night.  A female survivalist featured on the program ended up alone.  I have watched enough episodes to know that most people forced to survive long term all alone struggle greatly from lack of human companionship.

Most survivalists tend to go a little crazy when stranded alone.

Within a few days, the solitary survivalist on last night’s episode was muttering nonsense and screaming in anger at pretty much everything.

I don’t think I am capable of surviving alone.  I am already talking nonsense with my begonia plant and trying to reason with a leaky toilet.  I am pretty sure the jungle would overwhelm me.

—Mitchell Hegman

North American Racer

You are unlikely to find a North American Racer on the starting line of the next track event.  They are pretty fast, mind you, but they are also a type of snake.

I see North American Racers fairly often near my house.  They prefer somewhat open habitats, including shortgrass prairies of the type around me.  Racers also tend to be quite active during daylight hours.  And they definitely live up to their name when fleeing a perceived enemy.  They whip away at astonishing speeds.

Racers make their living by preying on insects and small vertebrates such as mice and birds.  These snakes are non-venomous and non-aggressive in behavior.

Yesterday, after prancing around outside (in more technical terms: watching a septic dude pump unmentionable goo and floaties from my septic tank), I nearly stepped on a North American Racer.  This particular snake—a three-footer—had decided to climb up onto the concrete steps at my front door.

I had to poke the racer a couple times to shoo it back out onto the prairie.  That, after capturing an image with my smarter-than-me-phone.

—Mitchell Hegman

My Peculiar Project

I have a peculiar project underway.

For the last year I have been collecting bird droppings of a sort.  Very specific droppings.  Before you run off in shock and disgust, allow me to explain.

I am collecting seeds from Russian olives that have been “processed” in the digestive tracts of birds.

I am not sorting through bird poo with a stick to find the seeds.  I am, instead, always scanning the ground and concrete surfaces around the outside of my house to find them just sitting there on display.

The seeds, you see, handily survive the digestive tracks of the mid-size to large birds that gulp down the olives for lunch and dinner.  The seeds soon pop out on the ugly end of the birds in an intact and rather polished condition.

My plan is to collect enough seeds to string together lengthwise on a fine fishing line for a necklace or some such.

I looked online.  You can purchase several hundred Russian olive seeds for, like, two bucks.  But where is the story or challenge in that?

So, for now, I am looking for the seeds.  Yesterday, I found another near my hot tub.  At the end of this blog, I have posted a photograph of my collection thus far.

As a final note, I should mention that Russian olive trees have been designated as an invasive species in some places.   Native to Southern Russia and extending into Turkey, the trees thrive in bitter cold, intense heat, dry climates, poor and even salty soils.  On the downside, the trees tend to create monocultures in riparian areas if given the slightest opportunity.  Here in the West, thousands upon thousands of Russian olive trees were planted from New Mexico to Canada in the wake of the 1930s Dust Bowl era.  Now, in some areas, the olive trees are on the march.

In Montana, along many of our rivers, our native cottonwood trees are ceding real estate to the olives.  Some jurisdictions have begun cutting down and eliminating the olive trees along the rivers in efforts to promote the growth of cottonwoods.

I will admit to liking the trees outside of riparian zones.  They offer a sweet scent when filled with blossoms.  The birds like the olives.  I like the seeds.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Brief Self-Assessment

Finally, I have arrived at a point in life where I have enough scissors I can always find a pair.  I have a spare igniter for my boiler and extra pillow cases.  I have no need to set my alarm clock.  Most importantly, I have learned to do exactly what my cat wants.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Carrot Wore a Wedding Ring

In 1995, Lena Paahlsson lived on a farm near Mora in central Sweden.  To the best of her recollection, she took off her wedding ring while baking treats for Christmas with her daughters.  The ring disappeared from the work surface where she recalled placing it.

In 2011, some sixteen years later, when Mrs. Paahlsson was pulling up carrots in her garden, she pulled from the rich soil a carrot with her gold band fastened tightly around it.

"The carrot was sprouting in the middle of the ring. It is quite incredible," her husband Ola told a local newspaper.

The couple believe the ring dropped into a sink back in 1995 and was swept up with vegetable peelings that were turned into compost or fed to their sheep.

Swedish Carrot

What are the odds of such a thing occurring?

Maybe better than you might imagine.  Particularly, if you live on a farm.   

In 2004, Mary Grams lost her ring while pulling weeds on the family farm in Alberta, Canada.  Mary, both embarrassed and devastated by the loss of the ring, kept the loss a secret.

In 2017, Mary’s daughter-in-law literally unearthed the secret.  While digging carrots in the farm’s garden plot, she spotted a carrot with a particularly odd shape.  A closer look revealed the carrot had grown straight through the ring, enabling it to be plucked out of the garden after many years buried in the soil.

Canadian Carrot

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: bbc.com