Female
mosquitoes suck blood. Male mosquitoes live
entirely on the nectar of plants.
Female
bees sting. Male bees have no stinger.
Female
black widows are not opposed to killing and eating their male mates after sex. Some female praying mantis species will do
the same.
Female
humans are pretty nice in the grand scheme of things.
—Mitchell Hegman
On
a recent drive through the mountains, I ran across a lovely but common purple-globe
clover. While, normally, clover tends to
grow in patches or dense clusters, I saw but a single globe standing bright and
tall against the otherwise green understory.
A
show-stopper, if you will.
The
clover blossom was optimistic enough, I captured an image and have shared that
here today.
I
also chanced upon three woodland pinedrops stalks emerging asparagus-style in the
pine forest. The shoots stood about a
foot tall and were nearly an inch in diameter at the base.
According
to a U.S. Forest Service webpage: “Pinedrops is a
member of the Indian-pipe family (Monotropaceae). Pinedrops is a root parasite,
depending on its association with a mycorrhizal fungus that is also associated
with a pine tree. Pinedrops produces very little chlorophyll and is therefore
not green in color and does not conduct photosynthesis.”
I
have posted photos of the emerging pinedrops.
I have also posted a photograph of a more mature pinedrops from a series
I captured in 2007. At full maturity,
pinedrops are easily capable of reaching three feet in height.
Purple-Globe
Clover
Pinedrops
—Mitchell Hegman
My fascination
with pretty or unusual rocks has been a constant in my life since I was a small
boy. Then, and now, I often return
home after an excursion with rocks in hand.
As a boy, I
imagined pretty rocks would taste better than, say, a chunk of gravel. And I put this to test time and time
again. After finding a pretty rock, I
would press my tongue against the surface to taste. I would immediately do the same with a
plain-looking stone from nearby for comparison.
No difference. Pretty or otherwise, all the rocks tasted of
dust.
Only now, as an
adult, do I find the lesson in that.
—Mitchell Hegman
The longer I sat
alongside the bank clerk’s desk (technically, she is classified as a credit
analyst), the more uneasy I became.
First of all, it
was a little weird being inside the bank.
As part of their Covid response, the bank lobby and offices are closed
to walk-in customers. But after a
conversation over the phone, the bank manager agreed to let me inside due to
the complicated nature of my transaction.
The credit
analyst, an attractive blondish woman in her twenties, could not have been more
helpful. Sitting appropriately apart at
the credit analyst’s desk, we both wore our face masks as we worked through
some papers.
And then this…this…thing
started wiggling around inside my brain.
On the desk, not
far from me, sat a large Dixie cup. The
cup was filled with paper binder clips. I
am not a thief. I don’t steal
stuff. But I have this weakness for
binder clips. I use them for
everything. I had two of them clipping
together some of the documents I carried in the bank with me. One is on my kitchen counter as I write
this. Dozens upon dozens are elsewhere
in my house.
And this thing is
squirming around inside my brain. An
urge. I really wanted to take a handful
of the binder clips. Just grab them.
I have had this
urge to snatch a few binder clips previously.
I always manage to poke the urge back into a corner. It is the weirdest thing. I sometimes begin to justify my impulse to swipe
them. I paid for them with my years of
business. I am expected to take
them. They are part of the deal. Whatever.
In the end, I
finished my banking and managed to leave without grabbing any binder clips.
When I arrived
back out at my car after settling my banking transactions, I noticed I had a
pen from the bank in my hand.
Part of the deal,
I guess.
—Mitchell Hegman
The large strawberries
you purchase from the local grocery had much smaller beginnings than you may
imagine. The fruit you purchase is the hybridized
version of Fragaria virginiana, more commonly known as wild
strawberry.
Wild strawberries
grow from coast to coast in the United States—preferring well-drained soils and
full sun to partial shade. Wild
strawberries plants thrive in great abundance around my cabin. While the leaves and runner vines are easy
to spot, the tiny fruit is often well hidden under the leaves. When you find ripe wild strawberries, you
will discover the berries to be a fraction of a fraction of the size you find
in the produce section of stores.
I poked around
near the side door of my cabin and managed to harvest a small handful of the
wee fruit. Though small, they are flavorful
and sweet when fully ripened.
I have posted a
couple photographs I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.
—Mitchell Hegman
Sources: https://www.lakeforest.edu, https://www.gardeningknowhow.com
For whatever
silly Mitch reason, I found myself wondering what selling points I might list
for myself if I were to put myself out there in something similar to an advertisement
for a used vehicle. Following are some
of my better selling points:
— Fully assembled in America with 100%
American parts
— Waterproof and stain resistant exterior
— Can pull weeds in a sustained
fashion
— Capable of integration with most mobile
device apps
— Easily accessorized
— Engineered to wash dishes and shake
rugs
— Can function in
all terrains
— Complete maintenance record is available
—Mitchell Hegman
On a trip to my
cabin, I found more than a few red twinberry bushes displaying fruit. Red twinberry, also known as Utah
honeysuckle, is one of the first shrubs to put forth flags of green in the
spring. They are very hardy. I consistently find them growing in my
favored huckleberry patches. The berries
are pure red and grow as conjoined twins.
This makes them easy to identify.
Red twinberries
are edible. They also have three remarkable
things going for them. First, they are
nearly tasteless. Secondly, they are
filled with water. Finally, red twinberries
produce small, inconspicuous seeds.
After chewing on
pine needles or nearly choking on overly-flavorful gooseberries (this is for
you, Roland Vickers), munching on a somewhat tasteless berry has its
advantages. Personally, I think the
twinberry has just the hint of a hint of watermelon flavor. I like them.
I particularly
enjoy the water content of these berries.
As I am picking huckleberries, I often swipe a few twinberries from
nearby plants and munch on them.
—Mitchell Hegman
I am sitting in a
folding chair immediately behind my parked automobile in something a three-foot
space between the automobile and the overhead door opening.
The overhead door
is up.
Sitting here is
not a normal part of my daily routine.
The sonorous rumblings
of thunder brought me out here. When I
first heard the thunder from inside my house, it sounded as though timpani
drums were raining down and hitting the ground outside my house. I peered out my front door and saw a rather
conspicuous and bruised-looking storm is elbowing out of the mountains and
trying to spill out onto the valley.
Sitting just
inside my garage with the door open is my version of a front row seat.
At present the
wind is blowing from the east. That
means a lot more of the storm is behind the fists and shoulders and knees of
clouds I see jostling above half the valley.
Rising to climb the Rocky Mountains just west of me, the storm impulse
is sucking air from the valley. Hence,
wind from the east.
As my creek (crick)
fishing buddies from East Helena, Montana, used to say at times like these:
“We’re gunna git it!”
I am reminded—for
obvious reasons—of the time someone asked, “Mitch what type of cloud is
that?” Not recalling a cirrus from a
stratus, I answered: “I think that is a bunny cloud.”
These are grizzly
bear clouds.
Anyhow, I intend
to sit out here and watch the wind running its fingers through the grass and
squeeze the trees. I want to watch
curtains of rain falling across the valley.
I want to smell the sage at wet prairie earth when rain finally arrives
here.
I have the time.
—Mitchell Hegman
I had a weird
thing happen. A really small winged
insect flew directly into my left ear.
But that’s not
the weird thing.
What happened
next is a bit more astonishing.
I sort of
freaked-out and rattled my head around—hoping to dislodge the invader. That did work. The bug flew out my ear. Thing is, I swear the insect flew out my
right ear.
Just wondering, is
that normal?
—Mitchell Hegman
I posted this
video once a few years ago. I am posting
again for no other reason than I think it is one of the best acoustic versions
of a song I have ever seen. I find the
video worth repeating.
—Mitchell Hegman
If you have a
yard of native landscaping and you don’t mow it down to within an inch of its
life before the end of the natural growing season, the earth may yield amazing
results.
In my “yard,” a flourish
of prairie coneflowers is just now peaking.
The flowers—held upright by thin stems—often seem as if floating on air a
foot or two above the ground.
Prairie coneflowers are a native perennial. They
are exceptionally hardy. Both drought
tolerant and capable of rooting in a variety of soil types, coneflowers enjoy a
wide range across the Great Plains. Their
footprint extends from south central Canada to northern Mexico, and west from
Manitoba and Minnesota to southeastern Idaho.
This flower does
remarkably well in dry and open places (read Mitch’s yard here). I will eventually mow my “yard,” but for now
I am giving it over to the natives.
Posted are images
I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.
—Mitchell Hegman
Dear Nobody in
Particular,
I hope this
letter finds you well.
I feel the need
to let go of a few things, and have decided to use you as my sounding board.
Let’s begin.
I am presently
looking out one of my bay windows. This
particular window has strips of masking tape applied to it. Recently, some crossbill birds discovered my
feeder. Crossbills are—for lack of a better
word—dolts. Several of them have struck
my window in the last week.
So: tape.
I have not yet developed
a taste for opera. I now accept that
sugar is poison. For several weeks I
developed a habit of making my bed as soon as my feet hit the floor, but I have
since lapsed back into less stringent habits.
I am saddened by how often I find familiar names in the obituaries. Mule deer are welcome to eat my flowers. I cannot give up bacon. Americana music: Yep. Sliced cantaloupe melons: Nope.
Last night, in the
deepest hours, I woke to find my wife closing the bedroom windows as strong
winds battered the blinds back and forth.
I sat up in my bed. “Do I need to
help you?” I asked.
I woke to gusts
of wind grasping and rattling my blinds through the open windows. I was alone.
I didn’t sit up. I didn’t speak.
My wife has been
gone for nine years.
I am pleased to
find her still alive in dreams. She
deserves that.
Thanks for listening.
—Mitchell Hegman
I spent an hour
or so helping my neighbor weeding his garden.
The climbing peas have grown rapidly in recent days. Because they had
not yet been provided a fence to climb, the peas were pretty much climbing all
over themselves. Some plants seemed on
the verge of weaving themselves into baskets.
As I pulled weeds
from around the pea plants, I was struck by how much the pea plants twisted
back into themselves. If not offered structure
to grasp and ascend they make a mess of themselves.
The thought
occurred that I am not so different from a pea plant. I need something to keep me busy—something to
climb, so to speak. I am not good at
sitting around. After being idle for
only a few hours, my mind begins climbing all over itself.
I am a different
kind of plant than most people. If not
busy, I am capable of driving myself crazy.
—Mitchell Hegman
If you bump into
a Bob Dylan quote someplace, the quote will likely be a snappy one-liner. I find that exceedingly interesting—at least,
when you consider how long, complex, and wordy he made many of his songs.
Posted below are some
Dylan quotes:
—Money doesn't talk, it swears.
—No one is free, even the birds are
chained to the sky.
—I'll let you be in my dreams if I can
be in yours.
—A song is anything that can walk by
itself.
—Mitchell Hegman
Yesterday, for
the first time in months, I sat out in my hot tub long before sunrise. I found myself surrounded by all the customary
stars, but also more striking things.
Comet NEOWISE
surprised me. The comet, and its long
lighted tail, can easily be found in the north, just a little below and off to
the right of the Big Dipper. The comet
looks very much like a long brushstroke of light painted just above the
horizon.
NEOWISE does not
visit us often. Give or take a few
seconds, the comet will not flick across our view for another 6,800 years. Comprised of nearly equal parts water and
dust, the comet’s tail is nothing more than dust and gasses trailing
along. The comet itself is about three
miles across and zipping along at 40 miles per second.
At present, the
comet is about 70 million miles from my hot tub. Comet NEOWISE earned its name by being discovered
in March by the infrared-optimized NEOWISE spacecraft (the name is short for
Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer).
As I relaxed amid
wisps of steam, I thought: “All I need now is to see a shooting star.” I allowed my eyes to drift up higher into the
dome of night above me. No more than
three or four seconds after I entertained this thought, a shooting star brushed
a fleeting streak of sparkles across the array of stars directly above me.
Nice.
Really nice.
I sat back and
took in all the stars. Among them, I detected
specks of light crisscrossing the sky in perfectly straight lines. Manmade contrivances, those. Satellites showering electronic impulses down
upon us.
Manmade, and otherwise,
I bathed there in in a pool of warm water and roving lights.
—Mitchell Hegman
Comet Information Source: space.com
Posted today are photographs
of two plant-types I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone while on an
excursion to the mountains yesterday.
False Hellebore
False hellebore
is a striking plant with large, handsomely sculpted leaves. This plant prefers moist environments and is
easily capable of growing to a height of six feet. Pretty as the plant is, false hellebore is
poisonous from head to toe and remains poisonous throughout the growing cycle.
Queen’s Cup
Queen’s cup produces
a single but striking white flower. A
member of the lily family, queen’s cup tends to grow in thickly populated and often brushy understories. I regularly find
them in huckleberry patches. When queen’s
cup produce fruit, the result can easily be mistaken for a huckleberry. I have found a few queen’s cup “berries” in
my huckleberry bucket after an earnest picking session. And, while the queen’s cup fruit is a
favorite for grouse, it is considered poisonous to humans.
Queen’s Cup Fruit (Photo: Montana Outdoors)
—Mitchell Hegman
Sometimes, I make
gestures for no other reason than to make nice.
I did that just the other day by purchasing a fairly expensive bottle of
Scotch. My thinking on this is that I might
share a bit of Scotch with someone if they drop by my house.
And, if nobody
stops in, there is nothing wrong with being nice to myself in a “collateral”
fashion by having a sip.
—Mitchell Hegman
I have done
plenty of things I regret. And I have
been reflecting on them of late. If were
to list them out, you would see all the common items: hurtful accusations, unwarranted
anger, holding back on help, stinginess, and on ad infinitum. But, more than anything, I regret I didn’t
take my grandfather fishing one more time than I did.
—Mitchell Hegman
I have made my
decision. I want to be a nuthatch.
For one thing, nuthatches
will join in with flocks of chickadees and do chickadee things. I already enjoy watching chickadees. I think I could hang out with them all day
long. And—who knows—I might enjoy doing
chickadee things.
In their personal
lives, nuthatches they are monogamous. Good
stuff, that. Monogamy provides stability
and consistency in life. I could use
some of that.
Perhaps, more
than anything, I would love to engage in some of a nuthatch’s quirky behaviors. I want to walk around upside down on the
bottom of tree branches and walk headfirst down the trunks of trees. Not many birds can do this. A nuthatch can.
A pair of
nuthatches regularly visits my house. The
birds habitually walk up and down the stucco and brick walls of my exterior. I have seen them join with the chickadees. And I regularly watch them engage in another
clever behavior: caching away “excess” food for future use. I often witness them wedging seeds from my
birdfeeder inside cracks in the bark of nearby trees or stuffing the seeds
under pieces of metal trim on the exterior of my house.
I have posted a short video about nuthatches and their unique activities.
—Mitchell Hegman
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnR2xZ9_IuoYou don’t need to
know my age to prove I have settled into middle age. There are other more certain signs. Here is one: This morning, while washing an
early load of laundry, I somewhat panicked because I thought I was out of
scented dryer sheets.
—Mitchell Hegman
While walking
along one of the roads near my house the other day, I had an interesting encounter. As I sauntered along the edge of the road where
it cuts through an embankment—THUMP—something hit on the embankment side
of me.
I stopped and surveyed
the immediate area, but didn’t see anything.
Just sagebrush and grass.
THUMP, again.
Like the sound of someone stamping their feet against the ground right alongside
me.
What the…????
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
Urgent now.
Looking closer to
me, almost within hand’s reach, I saw a head in a hole under sagebrush along
the embankment.
A pointy little
skunk head with beady eyes.
The skunk
thwacked the ground with his forepaw as I stared at him.
“I’m certainly glad that I’m seeing your face instead of your ass,” I said to him.
I basically
trotted off.
I suppose the
thumping was intended to warn me off. And
I bet the skunk would be a little disappointed to know that his skunkiness compelled
me to immediately walk on. That and purple
and black stormclouds tussling with themselves just above my head.
—Mitchell Hegman
Yesterday, I drove from Helena
to Billings by way of Montana Highway 89.
The highway slices between the island mountain range of the Crazy
Mountains and the Bridger Range a little west of those. I stopped at several places and climbed from
my car just to take in the day.
The Highway (Through My Windshield)
The Bridger Mountains
A Kit Surfer
The Crazy Mountains
Grass Raked by Wind
—Mitchell Hegman
