Versetta Stone

When it comes to building products, certain concepts really grab my attention.  One sure winner is the use of screws as fasteners.  This especially applies if using a star-head (Torx) screw is an option.  Star-head screws reek of positive holding from the instant you fit one onto the driver bit of your screw gun.

That’s some pretty good stuff—nearly on the level of duct tape. 

I never dreamed the day would arrive when I could use screws as the method for attaching stone to a wall, but the day has arrived.

For later part of this week, I have been screwing Versetta Stone cultured stone panels to my sunroom walls.  Better yet, for making clean cuts in the stone, I have been able to use the rock saw Tad and I jointly purchased.

Desiree and I chose Terra Rosa style stone, which somewhat matches the existing brick veneer on our home.  So far, I am impressed with to ease of installation and the look of the final product.  The panels fit pretty well providing you are diligent in initial layout and follow the instructions.

I have posted a few photographs of the work in progress.

 

Stone on the Back Wall

Receptacle Box Stone

Stone at the Door

—Mitchell Hegman

Nodding Onions

Nodding onions are found throughout the western half of Montana.  Several mostly open slopes near my cabin support fairly dense populations of wild onions. All parts of nodding onions are edible.  The flowers are particularly peppery.

I harvest and eat a few nodding onions every so often.  Desiree has adopted nodding onion as a flavoring ingredient when cooking fish.  They work well for this.  Most articles about nodding onions suggest using them as herbal flavoring rather than using them as a replacement for domestic onions.

Also, a word of caution.  Early in the spring, before flowering, death camas, another member of the lily family, can be mistaken for a wild onion.   As the name implies, death camas is poisonous.  Death camas is said to be quite bitter to the taste.  If you intend to harvest nodding onion, do some research.  Several informative videos can be found on YouTube.  I have included the link for one here.

Harvested Nodding Onions and Flowers

Desiree and a Handful of Nodding Onions

Onion Versus Death Camas Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8vz7B0hLC8

—Mitchell Hegman

Different Approaches

My newest neighbor and I employ markedly different approaches to enjoying our prairie properties.  I like walking about the various rolls and flats comprising my land.  I appreciate studying the hardy native plants and bushes.  I also spend a fair amount of time picking up and assessing rocks.

My neighbor likes tearing around his property in a side-by-side while spitting rocks from the tires and spooling out plumes of dust that slowly roll across the expanse.

Only one thing is certain regarding our different approaches—you will know when my neighbor is out and about.

—Mitchell Hegman

From a Dead Juniper, Life

When Desiree first arrived here in Montana three months ago, the deciduous trees remained bare, the grass was only slightly green and flowers had not yet emerged from overwintering in the ground.

Having never experienced the four seasons, she expressed a fair level of skepticism about anything coming back to life.  As spring gradually imprinted an array of greens and vivid colors back into our landscape, she found herself impressed.  Before long, she initiated a series of planting, replanting, and seeding projects.  She fussed with dozens of landscaping features around our house and orchestrated the addition of several more houseplants.

Something over a week ago, Desiree enlisted my help in another plant-related project. Having seen how beautiful a dead standing juniper can be if stripped of bark and sanded down, she wanted to make a juniper plant stand. 

Desiree spent the better part of a week sanding and finishing a long-dead juniper we lifted from the hillside just below our house.  I helped her fasten the juniper to a slab of Russian olive I had remaining from a previous cabin project.  Yesterday, we affixed platforms for holding plants to the juniper.

I have posted pictures of our finished product.  It’s pretty good stuff!

Our Plant Stand  

—Mitchell Hegman

The Charismatic Voice

I have developed a few weird habits over the years.  One of my stranger habits was dropping a banana in one of my work boots in the middle of the night.  I did this somewhat regularly back in my days of working construction.

The bananas served as an equivalent to a sticky note.

If something I needed to do at work struck me in the middle of the night, rather than trying to grab a notepad and pencil and flip on a light to write a reminder down, I would trot out to my kitchen in the darkness, find a banana (or anything else than would fit if we didn’t have bananas) to drop in my boots near the door.  Finding a banana in my boot in the morning would trigger me to recall whatever bothered me in the night.

My latest weird habit is watching music reaction videos.  If you are unfamiliar, these videos feature people watching and reacting, in real time, to artists and songs they have never heard before.  I especially enjoy reaction videos produced by people who are knowledgeable about music or singing on some level.  My favorite such videos are produced by Elizabeth Zharoff under the banner ‘The Charismatic Voice.’

Elizabeth Zharoff is an internationally acclaimed opera singer, producer, multi-genre vocal coach and video game voice actor.  Her genuine passion for music of all kinds is infectious.  I also appreciate her depth of knowledge relative to singing.

I have posted one of the latest Charismatic Voice reaction videos.  I don’t expect anyone to watch the full video, but watching a few moments of the video will give you some idea of how music reaction videos look and feel.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Recent Reaction Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGefTNPPaoU

Our Most Gruesome Flower

I learned something from my friend, Patti, while we were exploring Tizer Gardens last week.  When we chanced upon a sticky purple geranium (one of my favorite wildflowers) my friend, Patti, informed me that sticky purple geraniums are carnivores.

Not long after returning home from the gardens, I queried the internet to learn more about my purple wildflower.

Formally known as Geranium viscosissimum, sticky purple geranium is fairly widely distributed throughout the western states and locally abundant in many places.  Geranium is a perennial that blooms throughout our summer months.

Most interestingly, as Pattie noted, sicky purple geranium is protocarnivorous.  The plant it is able to dissolve protein, such as insects, that become trapped on its leaf surfaces.  The geranium then absorbs nitrogen derived from the protein.  This somewhat gruesome trick allows sticky purple geranium to survive in nutrient-poor environments.

I find sticky purple geranium throughout my mountain property.   Posted today is a photograph of a geranium only a few feet from my cabin door.

 

Sticky Purple Geranium

—Mitchell Hegman

Reestablishing My Connection

I woke this morning to a dead satellite feed on my television.  Over the years, I have learned a hard system reboot is the best first option for repair.

Sure enough, after pressing my satellite receiver’s rest button, my satellite feed scrolled itself back to life on the television screen.

A small victory, that.

As soon as a channel filled the screen, I found myself watching an advertisement about pooping.  That was immediately followed by an ad about planning for your own death.

—Mitchell Hegman

Desiree’s Dam

For several weeks, Desiree has expressed a desire to construct a dam across the small branch of the creek just below our cabin.  Interestingly, the stretch of water in question has a history with dams.

My late wife and I constructed a half-hearted stone dam there in June of 2003.  We did so to create a small waterfall.  Several years of heavy spring runoff waters gradually dismantled the dam.

In the ensuing years, the small channel gradually widened.  This forced me to extend various logs and planks across the water so I could reach the creek’s primary flow.

In 2018, I flopped a long section of bridge decking across the water there.  Two years later, beavers filled in below my plank with a stick and mud dam.

Yesterday, at Desiree’s urging, we constructed a handsome stone dam about three feet upstream from the beaver dam.  We used as our main building material angular chunks of shale gathered only a few feet from the cabin.

Really, I provided only day-labor for the project.  I used a wheelbarrow to haul stones of various size down to the creek.   Desiree engineered the dam and performed most of the work in the water.

I am not convinced our work was entirely adult in nature.  Something about water brings out the play in all of us.  At the same time, Desiree can build a righteous dam!

Desiree at the Wheelbarrow

Desiree Placing a Stone

Me at Work

Finished Dam

—Mitchell Hegman

Our Night Sky

Long beyond midnight, I woke to darkness in my cabin.  Feeling restless, I swung out from bed and went to glance out the sliding glass door at the elevated deck.

Wow!

All the stars stood atop the forest of black trees and mountain flanks before me.  Somehow, I had forgotten about the stars.  Here in Montana, we have a rare clarity of view in our night skies—something we often take for granted.

Many years ago, I accompanied a city kid from the Midwest on a night of partying around Helena.  Our last stop of the night found us at a fairly remote home on the edge of the Helena Valley.  As we stepped outside to leave late in the night, the kid stopped in his tracks.  “Wow!” he said.  “Look at that!”

“Look at what?” I asked.

“The stars.  They are so bright!  And there are so many.  Is it always like this?”

“Yeah, of course,” I told him.

“That’s something.”

Upon returning to bed last night, I found Desiree awake.  “Come with me for a second,” I urged her.

“What for?” she asked.

“I want to show you something outside.”

Though skeptical, Desiree followed me out toward the sliding door at the deck.  “Step out and look up,” I urged her.

Desiree leaned out the door and studied the array of stars above us.  “Wow,” she uttered.  “Is it like this at home, too?”

“Yep.  As we head into winter you will see a lot more night and a lot more stars.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Catfish Noodling, Bigfoot, and Murder

In my way of thinking, noodling for catfish requires a certain lack of good judgement.  For those unfamiliar with the practice, noodling involves finding a large catfish hole underwater and then sticking your arm inside the hole in hopes a big catfish will chomp onto your arm.  If, by chance, a big catfish latches onto your arm, the idea is to yank the fish from its hole and pull it to the surface.

This one is easy for me.  The better part of fishing is the fishing rod.

But this story is actually about Bigfoot.  Well, bigfoot and a murder.

Not long ago, a catfish noodler from Oklahoma named Larry Doil Sanders, was arrested and charged with murdering his fishing buddy, Jimmy Knighten.  Surprisingly, Mr. Sanders readily admitted to the murder, which occurred while the pair were noodling along the South Canadian River in Pontotoc County.

Mr. Sanders claimed to have good reason to kill his friend.  While at the river, he discovered his buddy Jimmy intended to feed him to Bigfoot.

Plausible?

To a noodler: yes.

After an extended fight, Larry Sanders choked Knighten to death.

The local sheriff said of Larry Sanders: “He appeared to be under the influence of something.  His statement was that Mr. Knighten had summoned ‘Bigfoot’ to come and kill him; that’s why he had to kill Mr. Knighten.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: Huffpost.com

A Screen Door in the Trees

The most amazing screen door in the world can be found at Tizer Botanic Gardens & Arboretum.  The gardens, located along Prickly Pear Creek in the Elkhorn Mountains near Jefferson City, Montana, feature nearly every flower and tree capable of growing in our region of the Rocky Mountains.  The screen door can be found amid the willow, birch, and maple alongside the creek.  Opening the door and walking through takes you from one beautiful outdoor space to another.

Yesterday, Desiree and I spent a couple hours touring the gardens with our good friends Tom and Pattie Russ.  Walking through the screen door, proved only the beginning of a lovely walk through a six-acre flourish of greenery and flowers.

Early on, a friendly black cat joined us and remained with us for much of our tour along the running waters and into the deepest forest.  Tizer also features a series of open gardens with sun-loving flowers and bushes.  In all, we spent something near two hours at the gardens.  We finished by purchasing an armload of green specimens to take home for ourselves.

Thanks for everything Tom and Patti!

The Screen Door to Everywhere

Peony

Desiree and a Fire of Flowers

Desiree and the Black Cat

Tom, Desiree, and Patti at the Deck in the Trees

—Mitchell Hegman

Called Out from Retirement

At times, gaps in talent and experience in a workforce will require companies to call a “seasoned” worker out from retirement to work on a contract or project.   Apparently, the same approach applies to squeegees at gas station dispensing bays. 

While pumping fuel into my car yesterday, I pulled from a bucket of soapy water a shockingly rusty and aging squeegee.  I considered dropping the squeegee back in the bucket and grabbing another from the bay next to me.

Surprisingly, I found myself impressed.  The seasoned squeegee performed perfectly—better than the newer offerings.

A Formerly Retired Squeegee?

—Mitchell Hegman

First Strawberry Harvest

The forest floor immediately surrounding my cabin is prime woodland strawberry habitat.  In many places, you would be hard pressed to take a step in any direction without stepping on strawberry runners.

Woodland strawberries are significantly smaller than their store-bought cousins.  At the same time, they are much brighter in flavor.

Though the forest floor is sometimes matted with strawberry plants, the berries can be difficult to spot unless you kneel down and explore under the splay of leaves. 

On a Sunday trip to the cabin, Desiree harvested her first woodland strawberries.  She gathered only a handful, but the berries proved good enough to promote the idea we will harvest a bowlful on our next visit to the woods.

Desiree and Her Strawberry Harvest

—Mitchell Hegman

In the Same Family

I am generally not concerned with fashion choices.  I am not opposed to wearing colors that clash or displaying a weird mix of styles.  My concern for what I wear plummets if I know I will not be surrounded by a lot of people.

Yesterday, after showering of the dust from a day in the woods, I scooped a pair of socks from my dresser and pulled them on without much thought.  Only when I tweaked the second sock for a better fit did I realize they were not a match.

I studied my socks briefly, shrugged, and then padded off to the living room.

As soon as I bumped into Desiree, I pointed out my socks.  “They don’t match,” I admitted, “But they are in the same family, so I am going to run with them.”

I am pretty sure my choices make her proud.

I have posted a photograph of my not-quite-matched socks.  As I look at the photo now, I am reminded of what one of my electrician coworkers always told me whenever I showed him a bit of conduit work I was proud of.  “Well,” he would tease, “It’s as good as you can do.”

In the Same Family

—Mitchell Hegman

Abandoned

Posted today is a photograph of Desiree during our most recent grocery shopping adventure.  Yep, she abandoned her cart at mid-aisle.

It’s a thing.

I have always teased shoppers when I catch them abandoning their cart in the middle of an aisle.

Desiree is not getting off the hook.

—Mitchell Hegman

Morning Report: July 16, 2022

I woke from a dream in which I was setting out cotton balls throughout my house with the idea spiders would become entangled in the cotton so I could trap them.

The good news?  Five windows and one door are open at my house.  Three whirring fans are drawing in outside air in an effort to cool the indoor spaces for the coming day.  The indoor temperature is 70° as I write this.

The bad news?  When I checked the outdoor thermometer at my back deck, I found an outdoor temperature of 70°.

Desiree and I have discovered “our” song: Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc.  The theme of the song is a bit dark, but the music is bright.  If you are unfamiliar, click on the link at the end of this blog.

My latest addiction is Mission brand pork rinds.

It occurs to me; I have not mispronounced the word “rotisserie” for at least twenty years now.  

When Desiree gets up in a few minutes, I intend to tell her I love her more today than yesterday. 

End of morning report.

—Mitchell Hegman

Dreadlock Holiday:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUNTk5xsxk4

Masterworks

“Desiree,” I announced, “You need to go to the bathroom.”

Desiree offered up a suspicious glance in my direction in response.

First of all, in the Philippines (Desiree’s homeland) such rooms are called neither bathroom nor restroom.  They are referred to as a “comfort room” or “CR,” for short.  Secondly, Desiree will not use a public bathroom if she can avoid it.  She is mistrustful regarding the cleanliness of public facilities.

“I’m good,” she eventually responded to me.

“You are great, actually,” I said.  “But you still need to go see at the women’s bathroom here.  Even if you don’t need to use it.”

Desiree and I were standing just off the rotunda in the Montana State Capitol while having this exchange.  I wanted to see if she would be as shocked as I was the first time I entered one of the restrooms in the capitol building.

Though skeptical, Desiree plodded off and pushed through the bathroom door.

She remained inside for a long time.

When Desiree eventually exited the bathroom, a steady smile bejeweled her face.  As she approached, I asked: “Did you take pictures?”

Desiree’s smile broadened.  She held forth her phone, nodding.

“The men’s room is also beautiful.,” I told her.  “I can show you.  Nobody is in there right now.”  I led Desiree to the door of the men’s bathroom and propped open the door so she could peer inside.  She quickly snapped a few images.

Posted today are a series of images lifted from Desiree’s phone.  Crazy as this may sound, I highly recommend you visit one of the bathrooms just off the rotunda if you get a chance.  They are stunning masterworks of marble and tile and clean light.

Women’s Bathroom

Men’s Bathroom #1

Men’s Bathroom #2

Desiree Bathroom Selfie

—Mitchell Hegman

Crab Whiskey

Sometimes, whiskey is required to solve seemingly insurmountable problems.  If you doubt that, visit one of the local taverns in my hometown of East Helena, Montana, and slam down a few shots with the locals.  You’ll be amazed by the problem-solving taking place. 

Tamworth Distilling, in faraway New Hampshire, is now using whiskey to address the problem of invasive crabs.  They are doing so by making the crabs into one of their whiskey offerings.   

The crabs in question—green crabs--have beleaguered marine ecosystems along the North American coast for more than 200 years.  The crabs originally found their way here on ships arriving from Europe in the 1800’s.  They have grossly overpopulated in many areas.  The crabs devour tons of shellfish and have ravished estuaries and fish habitats.

The process for making whiskey from green crabs is complicated, but in the end, something near a pound of crabs is required to produce a bottle of whiskey.  The distillery is not using enough crabs to make a notable impact on the invasive crabs, but they hope to trigger awareness of the crab problem and encourage other commercial harvesting of the invasive species.

Dr. Gabriela Bradt, a marine biologist and fisheries specialist at the University of New Hampshire says if the clams:

"They are probably one of the most successful invasive species that we have in North America, at least in the marine world," she said. "They can eat about 40 mussels a day, just one crab. And so you multiply that by a bazillion, and you have no more clams."     

Will Robinson, the product developer at Tamworth Distilling calls the whiskey a “thinking, sipping” drink. "It's meant for you to explore your own perception through your olfactory senses," he notes.

I’m not sure how that translates in East Helena bar talk.  I suspect it may mean folks will be required to develop a taste for the product.

Easily done in my hometown.

Crab Trapper Whiskey

—Mitchell Hegman

Source and Photograph: NPR

Stealing Flowers

Desiree has been stealing flowers from my yard.   Well, not precisely stealing.  The flowers eventually reappear in a new location.

Perhaps a little history is in order before I go on. 

For the entire thirty-one years I have been living at my house, I have planted flowers and broadcast the seeds of native and Mitch-yard-tolerant whatnots all around my house.  This spring, ss soon as weather permitted, Desiree tried her hand at planting flowers around the place.

She also took to stealing flowers from where I had them growing and replanting them where she prefers to see them.

That’s a pretty weird thing to do.  Right?

At first, I thought I might like to get slightly miffed about that.  But I quickly realized that’s something I have done.  At times, I transferred what I called “prairie plugs” into my yard from the wilds around me.  The plugs were essentially shovel-sized chunks of earth with flowers, cactus, or grass I pried from the ground in the wilds around me so I could replant them close to my house.

When I put all this together, I realized Desiree is my kind of weird.

A Sample of Desiree’s Work

—Mitchell Hegman

Ghost Towns

For our latest Montana adventure, Desiree and I toured the gold rush towns of Virginia City and Nevada City.  The two towns almost instantly sprouted up along Alder Creek in southern Montana upon discovery of gold in early 1863.  At the peak of the ensuing gold rush, some 10,000 people streamed in to the immediate area to take advantage of what became the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains.  Early on, Virginia City had enough flourish and activity to be named the territorial capital of Montana in 1865.

Today, the two towns, separated by only a mile of highway, are mostly authentic ghost towns.  Enough old buildings, antiques, and real-life characters remain collected together in the towns to make you feel as though you have stepped into another era.  A couple buildings we visited while walking around ‘felt’ creepy enough that Desiree didn’t want to explore deep inside them.

Desiree especially enjoyed the old horse-drawn wagons on display at various locations.  I am always thrilled to drop quarters into the music machines on display at Nevada City.

I have posted a selection of photographs from our adventure and a short video of Desiree at one of the music machines.

The Tobacco Root Mountains

Virginia City

Nevada City

Desiree as a Ghost in the Light

Desiree and a Music Machine at Nevada City

—Mitchell Hegman

Falling in the Correct Direction

Perhaps you have seen the YouTube video of the guy successfully felling a huge Douglass fir tree in the five-foot space between two buildings.  Rest assured, that would never be me.  If I tried that, I would somehow manage to drop the tree on both buildings.  I constantly misread the lean on trees.  I don’t pay attention to the directional pull of upper branches, et cetera, et cetera.

Fairly regularly, trees I knock down tip in the exact opposite direction I am aiming for.  This is why, last fall, I called a couple better sawyers to help me drop several trees threatening my cabin.

On my last trip to the cabin, I dropped something near a dozen dead-standing lodgepole and fir.  Surprisingly, all but one tree fell exactly where I wanted them and I didn’t wipe out any living trees I intended to save.  My one failure, a sub-alpine fir, possessed a lean I could not overcome.  Fortunately, the tree whumped down in a harmless direction of its own preference.

Today, I am sharing a photo and video (thanks to Desiree) of me felling on of the larger trees on a slope above the cabin. 

Photo of Me Sawing the Tree

Video of the Tree Dropping

—Mitchell Hegman

Montana Logic

• No town is too small to sponsor a rodeo.
• If two routes take you to the same place, take the one with a bar along the way.
• It’s never the wrong time of year to take along a jacket.
• Running out of beer when camping isn’t careless, it’s criminal.
• You’re not someone until you’ve earned a nickname.
• If snow if falling sideways, it’s a blizzard.
• It’s a “crick” not a “creek.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Campfire Cooking

Nothing tastes better than dinner cooked over a campfire.  The trick when cooking with a campfire is maintaining an optimum fire and temperature.  Desiree and I started our cooking fire late in the afternoon so we could reduce a half dozen larger logs down to a pulsating bed of coals for proper cooking. 

Desiree likes a fire.  A big fire.  Reducing flames in not generally a target on her radar screen.  Given that, we initially overachieved on fire-building.  For a few minutes, flames scissored six or so feet into the air.  Eventually, however, the tall flames collapsed down into a fine bed of coals.

My mountain neighbors recently gave us a small bellows for urging reluctant campfires.  The bellows, it turns out, is perfect for adjusting temperature upwards when a bed of coals wanes.  A few puffs directed at the coals quickly livens them.

We used the bellows during the final stage of our cooking.    

In the end, Desiree and I shared a fine dinner featuring freshly caught brook trout and hamburgers.  Just as we finished with our dinner, sun showers swept through the forest.  Our day ended with a double rainbow arched over the small mountain valley.

Desiree Using the Bellows to Liven the Fire

—Mitchell Hegman