The Great Seed Caper

Desiree has discovered hollyhocks.  This is not necessarily a good thing.

She first spotted the hollyhocks (of various colors) growing along a fence in an alley in Three Forks, Montana.  “What is that flower?” she asked.

“Those are hollyhock,” I told her.  I then made the mistake of saying: “We can take a closer look at them if you want.”

“I want,” she said.

When we approached the flowers on foot, Desiree saw the plants were displaying both new flowers and clusters of mature seeds.  Within a few seconds, Desiree started walking down the row of hollyhock collecting handfuls of seeds.  She made conscious efforts to gather seeds from plants of every color.

“Technically, that’s stealing,” I suggested.

Desiree smiled.  “But they are pretty.”

“True.  Go for it.”

Desiree and the Stolen Hollyhock Seeds

—Mitchell Hegman

Parker Homestead

I recently decided (yesterday to be exact), Desiree and I have it pretty good.  We have a metal roof over our heads, running water inside the house, a refrigerator with a couple cold beers in it, and two cabinets in our den filled with pretty rocks.

Yesterday, we visited the Parker Homestead, just a few miles down the road from Three Forks.  The homestead is nothing more than log walls and a roof covered with sod.  Nelson Parker and his family constructed the two-room cabin in 1910.  For the first few years the Nelsons hauled water they scooped from nearby ditches.  Later, they upgraded to a well and hand-pump a few yards outside the house.

That was about as easy as it got for them.  No refrigerator with cold beer.  No den with pretty rocks.

The homestead cabin is now a Montana state park.  As you can see by the photograph I am sharing, the grass on the roof and the grass surrounding has cured entirely under the hot summer sun.  I cannot begin to imagine how different our lives would be if we lived as the Parkers did.

      

Parker Homestead

—Mitchell Hegman

Proof of Idiocy

I am not merely a “glass half-full” type.  I am “glass is full” sort.  I am not talking about my outlook on life, though.  I am talking about my level of idiocy.

Before I offer an illustration of this, I need to tell you about a weird habit Desiree and I have developed.  Most nights, when I drink a glass of red wine, we cut segments of orange or tangerine and drop them in my glass before pour in the wine.  By the time I have sipped down my drink, the wine has infused the segments of fruit.  Both Desiree and I enjoy eating the wine-soaked chunks after I have finished the wine.

I suspect adding fruit to a glass of wine is offensive to some, but that is a subject for exploration on another day.

The other night, immediately after filling my glass of wine (chunks of orange included) I somehow flicked the glass over and unleashed a tsunami of wine and orange chunks.  After splashing contents across the kitchen counter, the glass dropped to the floor and created a secondary explosion of wine and orange chunks.

The mess proved horrendous.

Interestingly, red wine has penetrating properties something akin to WD-40 lubricating oil.  In order to complete cleaning up the mess, Desiree and I needed to wipe red wine from inside of the drawers and cupboards as well as the outside.

 

My Big Mess

—Mitchell Hegman

Saving a Goat’s Beard

We saved a goat’s beard.

This is likely not what you think.

Goat’s beard is a perennial plant native to the West Coast states, but capable of surviving in our plant zone.  Desiree bought a start for the plant from Tizer Botanic Gardens early in the summer and has been tending it in the sunroom ever since.

Realizing time was running out for getting the goat’s beard planted, we made a quick run to the cabin to do such.

Goat’s beard enjoys moist soil and does well in partial shade.  Given this, we pried a hole in the earth at the southeast corner of the cabin and plunked the plant down in that.  The cabin structure will provide shade.  Additionally, runoff from the roof will feed extra moisture the plant.

Goat’s beard grows to a height of five feet.  They are exceptionally showy when they bloom in early to midsummer.  We are hoping for big shows in the summers to come.

Up Close (A Modest Start)

The New Home

Goat’s Beard in Full Bloom (Amazon.com)

—Mitchell Hegman

Daffy

The birds around my house have gone daffy.  I have never seen anything like this.  Dozens of birds surrounded my house throughout the day and into the evening yesterday.  We are talking about bluebirds, sparrows, and LBJs (little brown jobs) all hanging out together.  Not just hanging out together, but weirding out together.

The birds bounded all over in the grass.  They bounced up onto the fence and bounced along the rails.  Almost continuously, one bird or another swooped from pine tree to pine tree along the incline behind my house.  They hovered in the air, dropped here, ascended there.  On two occasions an LBJ flew up and flared for a moment above my head before flitting away.

Quite often, pairs of birds twirled around each other in midair or engaged in chase and break runs.

The strangest behavior, though, was the brief gathering of different species into groups of a half dozen or so as they swept off into the juniper and sage or looped into the pines.

Clearly, all of the birds were feeding on an abundance of hoppers and other insects.  But an element of something else seemed at work.  Maybe some birds were giddy with anticipation of their coming migrations to the south.  Maybe the newbies simply wanted to play.  Either way, both Desiree and I stood watching the birds in wonder as our own activities drew us outdoors.

—Mitchell Hegman

Show Metal

Iron workers use the term “show metal” to describe the rapid erection of iron columns and beams on a structure.  This usually follows an extended time spent on layout and preparation.

Yesterday, Desiree and I finished our own version of show metal.  We fastened metal siding to the back wall of the sunroom and then installed a new window.  This followed a months-long problem with locating a provider for the metal siding we wanted.     

At this point, only a day or so of stonework remains to complete the entire project.

I appreciate the shine and reflections of our most recent work.

Looking into the Sunroom

Sunroom Wall

—Mitchell Hegman

Broken Light

Late last night, a fierce lightning storm marched through mountains.  I woke to harsh light strobing throughout my house each time a stroke of lightning plunged into the sprawl of peaks and valleys north and south of me.

At times, the broken light seemed to rip my house in two.  One flash of light might place a bright wall too close to me; while the next pushed walls too far away.  Alternating between the north and south side of my house, the splashes of light delivered strange shadows that made tables and chairs appear to dance all around me.

As a young boy, these displays of too overly bright light and crazy shadows terrified me.  But last night I watched in fascination as light juggled the contents of my house before my eyes.

In the end, everything we see is merely a trick of the light and I am here to enjoy the show.

—Mitchell Hegman

Most Helpful

Have you ever noticed how some people offer to be helpful but then don’t go away, which would be most helpful?

—Mitchell Hegman

Calm in the Valley

While looking through some computer files, I chanced upon a photograph I captured of the Helena Valley Reservoir seven years ago.  Upon finding the photograph, I popped it up onto my screen and stated at it for a while, appreciating the calm water.

Today, we begin with that calm.

—Mitchell Hegman

In the Name of a Garden

I literally live on a pile of rocks.  My house rests atop a huge wash of stone and sand swept into place by flooding at the end of the last ice age.

While many of the rocks are pretty, none are conducive to growing plants.  Furthermore, it helps little that, around here, we stumble and fall before reaching thirteen inches of precipitation annually.

Not wishing to fight against nature, I established xeriscaping around my house—a scheme which uses native and dryland plants requiring little or no irrigation.  By design, most of my yard dries out and goes dormant this time of year.

Desiree arrived here from the tropics with slightly different sensibilities.  Although I do have a few leafy trees and a couple tiny flower gardens offering a few flags of green, Desiree would like to see a little more.

I can understand that.

For the last couple days, we have spent our early morning hours prepping the ground near my house for a modest garden she can tend next year.  “Prepping the ground” at my place translates into prying rocks of various size out from the first few inches ground and then bringing in topsoil to supplement the poor earth remaining.

I have posted a photograph of the second wheelbarrow-load of rocks we worked up from the ground.

Our Second Load of Rocks

Our Modest Garden Patch

—Mitchell Hegman

On the Other Hand

• Age is just a number in the same way a grizzly bear is just another cute animal.
• For every thirteen grasshoppers that fly away from you, one will fly directly into your face.
• Country living boils down to this simple choice: Do you want deer or do you want flowers in your yard?
• A refrigerator stocked with beer is at least fifty percent correct.
• In Montana, out-of-state license plates are always out of style.

—Mitchell Hegman

Monkey Flowers

Monkey flowers are not common in my corner of the Rocky Mountains.  As a starting point, they like having their feet wet.  This tends to limit their habitat to areas along mountain springs and creeks.  I know of one small bouquet of monkey flowers that appears each summer in a pile of rocks at the center of a whitewater tumble of water high in the mountains above Lincoln, Montana.

I have found mostly purple monkey flowers in my years of mountain wandering, but on a few occasions I have chanced upon yellow specimens.

On a recent drive near Rimini with Desiree, I spotted a stand of monkey flowers teetering above a spring alongside the road.  Naturally, I had to stop and admire them.

Monkey Flowers

—Mitchell Hegman

August (Dry Transgressions)

Out on my country road, grasshoppers cannibalize their unlucky cousins where they lie in grisly pose after being struck or run over by cars and trucks grinding on through veils of dust.

T.S. Eliot was mistaken when he wrote: “April is the cruellest month.”

In my northland, August is the cruelest month.  In August, the sun bleaches all green from the grassy opens and the blank sky forgets how to produce rain. 

We can forgive T.S. Eliot, of course, because he is a poet.  Poets drink too much gin and overthink everything.

Out here, we spend much of our August waiting for smoke from both distant and nearby wildfires to fill our valley.  We, and our landscape, are largely shaped by summer fires.

But give me ten minutes of rain and the scent of sagebrush and the scent of damp earth.  Give me that.  And I will forgive August for the driest transgressions.   

—Mitchell Hegman

Tomatoes

Desiree made sinigang soup.  For those of us from my hometown of East Helena, Montana, sinigang soup translates into “sour soup”.  Tamarind is the agent used for souring the soup and pork is traditionally the protein introduced into the stock.

Sinigang soup has landed as my favorite dish from the Philippines.

In making this batch of soup, Desiree used two tomatoes grown in our sunroom.  One of the tomatoes was green, the other red.  Desiree nibbled at a couple smallish ripe tomatoes early on, but this marks the first official use (in a meal) of something grown in our sunroom.

That’s a pretty big deal.

Maybe, I thought, we can make that darned sunroom pay for itself in produce.

Last year, the price of tomatoes settled somewhere near $1.90 per pound.  What if we grew a pound of edible tomatoes every week?  At that rate, accounting for a few expenses along the way, we could pay for the cost of my sunroom in something near 400 years.

Desiree Holding Our Sunroom Tomatoes

Tomato Plants in Our Sunroom

—Mitchell Hegman

I Feel Like Touching Something That’s Not There

 

During the school year of 1975-1976, the Montana Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored a statewide “Poets & Writers in the Schools Program”.  The program produced and collected poems from students in elementary and secondary schools throughout the state of Montana.  The poems were published in a book of poems titled: I Feel Like Touching Something That’s Not There.

I am fortunate enough to have a copy of the book in my poetry collection.  Honestly, this is one of my favorite books.  This morning, I pulled the book from my poetry shelf, as I do from time to time, and read through a few poems.

My favorite poems are the small works written by elementary students.  They are bright little flowers, these poems.  Today, I am sharing three examples:

Out in Roundup the stars are all bunched together.

Cindy

Garfield Elementary

Billings

 

If I were a piano I would be elation-elation-elation

Reuben Bear Tusk

Pryor Elementary

 

Dad I want

A quiet voice

I want one

Dad

Nichole Neibauer

Whittier Elementary

Bozeman

 

—Mitchell Hegman

Clichés

I have mentioned in previous blogs how Desiree struggles with American slang and idioms.  Some turns of phrase are simply outside her experience with the language.  At the same time, she sometimes uses idioms from the Philippines I don’t understand.

One day, for example, she told me she liked to help her garbage man (financially) when she could because he was always “stretching his bones”.

“What does that mean,” I asked.

Desiree laughed.  “It means he is trying as hard as he can.”

Yesterday, Desiree and I received a gift in the mail from my friend, Diane.  At one time Diane lived along the lake not far from me.  The gift is a book of common American clichés and their meanings.  The book originally belonged to Diane’s father, Lyle, also a friend of mine.  Lyle passed not so long ago.     

The book is good stuff.  I appreciate the gesture on many levels.  Desiree already finds the book both fun and practical.  The clichés within the book are listed in alphabetical order, beginning with “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and ending with “yellow-bellied”.

I am considering reading one page to Desiree each morning as we sit sipping our coffee.  As I glance through random pages, I am struck by how often I use clichés Desiree may or may not understand.

Book Cover

Inside the Book

—Mitchell Hegman

Stuff I Learned Yesterday

• Attaching a bat house to the gable end of your house does not necessarily mean bats will stop clinging to the stucco just outside your back door.
• Breaking a stick in two may require safety gear.
• Your spouse can remain uncompromisingly beautiful for 72 days in a row.
• No matter how many times I try, my computer is never going to allow me to write “reckless” as “wreckless.”
• TV personality and “health guru” Richard Simmons is still alive, but he has been avoiding the spotlight (just as much as I have been avoiding seeing him there).

—Mitchell Hegman

Do Spiders Sleep?

Once again, another group of research scientists from a university ran out of practical subjects to research and, instead, studied something whacky.  This study, conducted by evolutionary biologists at the University of Konstanz in Germany sought to determine if spiders sleep.

Frankly, I really don’t care if spiders sleep at night.  But, if anyone is interested, the thought of big hairy spiders (with more legs than necessary) does keep me awake at night.

Researchers, being on the smart end of the scale, realized they could not simply ask spiders if they sleep.  Instead, the team trained cameras on baby jumping spiders at night to find out.

Had I been advising the research team; I might have suggested listening for miniature snoring.  But, then, I am no evolutionary biologist.

Footage from the study does indeed suggest spiders sleep.  The recorded footage showed patterns that looked a lot like sleep cycles: The spiders’ legs twitched and parts of their creepy eyes flickered.  This suggested the spiders were in a state of REM sleep.

On a personal note, I have (given some of their movies and cuisine) considered the French to be the weirdest Europeans.  I am currently in a state of reevaluating this matter.

—Mitchell Hegman

SOURCE: AP

Orange Water, Orange Sky

Three of Desiree’s Filipina friends pitched a tent down at the lakeshore and spent the night there.  Early in the evening, several other Filipinas gathered with us for a lakeshore dinner.

The local Filipinas are the among sweetest and most fun-loving people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  They are, at the same time, hardworking and have readily become Montanans to the core.  They all enjoy hiking, fishing, camping, berry gathering, and just about any other activity that makes Montana living unique and beautiful.  Most of the girls have even adopted a mostly favorable view of winter.

Last night, following an after-the-rain cruise on my pontoon boat, we were visited by a stunning sunset that provided us with both orange sky and orange water.  That called for a gathering at the dock and a series of photographs.

The Girls: Merlita, Luisa, Desiree, and Rocel

Orange Water, Orange Sky

Taking Pictures

—Mitchell Hegman

Ladybugs at a Great Price

So far as buying bugs goes, ladybugs are pretty inexpensive.  Should you be interested, you can find them for sale at Amazon.  I found a batch of 4,500 live ladybugs there for only $30.00.  That’s a pretty good deal—less than a penny a bug.   

Well over 20 years ago, before biological control of weeds was a big thing, I connected with an entomologist in Bozeman.  At the time, he was experimenting with (and breeding) a couple smallish beetle species that attacked diffuse and spotted knapweed.  Way back then, I sometimes purchased beetles from him at the astonishingly steep price of $1.00 each.

One of the beetles attacked the root of the weeds.   The other beetle ate the seeds from the flower heads before they matured.  I was curious about the effectiveness of such biological control.  Surprisingly, the beetles performed well in controlling the diffuse knapweed on my lake property.

Ladybugs are beneficial, too.  They hunt down and eat insect pests such as aphids and they stay on task day after day.    Best of all, they are cheap.

—Mitchell Hegman

Yardwork: Things You Need to Know

• A yard of topsoil heaped in the bed of your pickup will make a much smaller pile on the ground where you need it.
• First and last to grow: weeds.
• There is a place for a square-point shovel.
• You can’t trust a flower lacking a common name.
• If a rock is too large to remove, it’s a feature.
• The more flowers you have, the shorter your summer vacations.
• Buying manure is a real thing.
• Annuals!

—Mitchell Hegman

Charley Horse

Somewhere after midnight, I woke in my bed and tried to shift my position.  The instant I tried to move, a severe cramp knotted-up the calf in my left leg.  I immediately drew my leg up and rocked backed and forth in the bed, grimacing.

I am both a baby regarding pain and a bit vocal about it.  Though I managed to avoid screaming out, my rocking woke Desiree.

“What’s wrong?” Desiree asked with a tinge of panic in her voice.

“Charley horse,” I hissed between my teeth.

This morning, the thought occurred that Desiree may not be familiar with “Charley horse.”   My use of American slang often baffles her.

The term ‘Charley horse’ is a particularly strange one to use for a muscle cramp and appears to have originated with baseball players in the 1880s.  Some attribute the term as a reference to a lame horse named Charley that worked at the Chicago White Sox playing field.

I am limping this morning and will adopt that theory for today.

—Mitchell Hegman

Attack of the Rogue Beaver

If you visit my lakefront, you will notice wire fencing wrapped around the base of my golden willows.  I originally started wrapping the trees thirty-plus years ago after a beaver gnawed at one of the them.  Our section of the lake is not great habitat for beaver, but on rare occasion one will migrate through.

Yesterday, while down at the lakeshore retrieving a couple five-gallon buckets, I noticed something missing.  That something was a golden willow that grew from a branch I poked into the rip-rap at the edge of the lake a dozen or so years ago.  Upon close inspection, I saw the tree had been attacked by another rogue beaver.

Weirdly enough, I am having trouble getting mad at the beaver.  A beaver needs dinner.  Also, I have been enjoying the work of beavers along the creek at my cabin.  They are an incredibly industrious sort.  They have made several handsome ponds in my meadow.  And they have provided sub-irrigation that now keeps sections of the meadow green throughout the dry spells of summer.

Gnawed Willow

—Mitchell Hegman

Another Random Observation

Having worked most of my life in the construction industry, I encountered a number of successful sole proprietor construction firms.  A hallmark of the owners of such firms is their drive and passion for their chosen industry.  These are people who started at the bottom and worked their way to the top.

I have also observed how some sole proprietors eventually inject their children into the management structure of the firms without having them work their way up through the ranks.  This seldom leads to further success.  Instead, the children start at the top and slouch their way to the bottom, dragging down the business with them.   

—Mitchell Hegman

A Cabin Needs Elk Antlers

Acid reflux drove me to sleep sitting upright on the sofa in the cabin.  I woke this morning to elk antlers and a high vaulted ceiling.  For just an instant I felt disoriented and confused about my exact location.     

A couple notes on the elk antlers.

I lost my desire for hunting long ago.  I have never hunted elk.  The antlers were given to me by my friend, Gary Pemble.  “You can’t have a cabin in Montana without elk antlers,” he told me.

“Okay,” I said.

I have never wanted to display antlers in my home.   I prefer living plants.  But Gary was correct about the cabin and today, just as yesterday, I woke to exactly what I needed.

My View Upon Waking

—Mitchell Hegman

The Prow

I constructed the high and steep roof of my cabin into a prow that angles out over the front deck.  Early this morning, after waking in the predawn, I stepped out onto the deck and experienced the strangest sensation.  Looking up at the sky, I saw the prow of my cabin roof thrust against a wash of perfectly clear stars.  For just a few seconds I felt as if I were on a small ship finding its way directly through the vast expanse of heavenly bodies surrounding us.

When I first framed the cabin twenty years ago, I insisted on the roof prow even though such a feature adds considerable work and wastes more materials.  The sensation I felt this morning made all of that worthwhile.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Sky is My Garden (Late Summer Version)

The sun is too big this time of year.  By late afternoon, the sky itself is hot to the touch and blank from end to end.  Only the cool of morning and the luxury of clouds can save us from evaporating away.

In the morning, buffed with apple and orange colors by first light, and shaped by winds aloft, clouds present themselves.  Some clouds dispatch themselves  as sailing ships and prairie schooners.  Others form a panda bear.  And there, a collection of white carnations without stems.

In the early morning, the sky is my garden and I want for nothing more.

—Mitchell Hegman

 

A Bona Fide Montanan

You know you have become a bona fide Montanan when:

• You earn a nickname that even your grandmother adopts.
• Another Montanan takes you huckleberry picking to a spot where you actually find berries.
• You change a tire while the temperature is thirty below.            
• You say “cattle” instead of “cows”.
• Crossing over the Continental Divide is a common occurrence. 
• You close gates after walking through them.
• You have been to Two Dot.
• 406 means something to you.
• You drive fifty miles of Eastern Montana highway without encountering another vehicle in doing so.

—Mitchell Hegman

Cousins

I have an excess of extended family in the Helena area.  This is not surprising.  On my father’s side of the equation, my family arrived in the nearby gold rush town of Marysville, Montana, in the 1860s.  Though none of my predecessors become rich, they worked hard, knew their way to the best taverns, and produced a lot of children.

On August first, Desiree and I joined the Helfert wing of my family at JFK Park in East Helena.  The park is literally within a stone’s throw of my childhood home.  By the end of the evening the place swarmed with my cousins, first cousins once removed, and first cousins twice removed.

Chatting with my cousins and walking the trail along nearby Prickly Pear Creek brought forth a lot of childhood memories.  My dog, Sandalwood, and I spent a lot of days along the creek.

At the end of the evening (and a game of tee-ball), the lot of us collected for a group picture.  Quite a collection we are—now that we have worked our way out of the taverns.

Cousins (Normal)

Cousins (Crazy)

—Mitchell Hegman

Adding to the Bone Pile

I have firmly established my level of idiocy.  Based on my most recent work on the Versetta Stone siding for the sunroom, I am a ‘third-level’ idiot.

Let’s revisit yesterday so I can explain.

Yesterday, I attempted to cut a single stone panel that will accommodate a switch, a thermostat, and (on the opposite end of the panel) the curve of the sunroom glazing.  In all, six different cuts are required to produce the required shape from a single Versetta Stone panel.

On my first attempt, I miscut the vertical cut for the switch.  On the second attempt, my horizontal cut for the thermostat carried too deep.  On my third attempt, I mismarked a different cut.  By the time I finished with all of this, I had added three panels to my Versetta Stone ‘bone pile.”

After pitching the third miscut panel into the bone pile, I twiddled my thumbs and mentally assessed.  How stupid am I?  Am I willing to try a fourth panel on the same day?

Nope.

I held firm at three wasted panels.  After cleaning up my mess, I quietly got to work on paying a few bills.

Later this morning—on a fresh day--I will try a fourth panel.

Miscut Stone

My Bone Pile

—Mitchell Hegman