Rambutan

Following are three things you shouldn’t do:

1. Don’t take marital advice from someone who has been married and divorced six times. 
2. Don’t follow me into the precious metals market.
3. Don’t order rambutan online and have it shipped to your house.

Rambutan is a weird little fruit native to Southeast Asia. The fruit is small, somewhat egg-shaped, and covered in a hairy, reddish, or yellowish skin that resembles a lychee. Beneath the skin lies a translucent, juicy, and sweet flesh that has a mildly acidic flavor, often likened to a grape. At the center of the fruit is a large seed, which can be easily separated from the flesh. The seed is typically not consumed due to its bitter taste.

Both Desiree and I were craving rambutan after a conversation somehow turned to them. Following that, Desiree plowed through some purchasing options on the internet and then ordered a few rambutan that were grown in Mexico and shipped from California. Unfortunately, it was a failed experiment. The fruit arrived in pretty tough shape, and only something near one in four were edible.

Good Rambutan

Our Internet Rambutan

—Mitchell Hegman

The Search

The place where the sapphires were formed no longer exists, but the sapphires remain. Massive ancient floods scoured them from their geological place of origin and then deposited them along a dozen-mile stretch of what is now the Missouri River near Helena, Montana (the very region where I built my house). Today, the sapphires are found in alluvial gravel deposits and terraces called bars.

Sapphires were first discovered by gold miners in 1865, who were confounded by the clear, mostly blue stones clogging up their bold sluices. Today, several small sapphire operations glean sapphire gravel from the bars here alongside the Missouri River. Yesterday, I visited one of the local sapphire mines and purchased a couple of bags of sapphire gravel. Last night, Desiree and I processed some of the gravel in an ongoing quest to find our own large stone for a ring for Desiree.

Our Sunroom Processing Area

Sapphire Gravel in the Light Box

Sapphires!   

—Mitchell Hegman

Licking Rocks

I am not opposed to licking a rock now and then.  My reason for doing so is much more practical than the practice of licking poisonous toads to experience a psychedelic trip.  And I am not alone in the habit of licking rocks.  In fact, an Ig Nobel prize was recently rewarded for “research” in the matter of licking rocks.

If you are unfamiliar, the Ig Nobel Prize is something of a parody of the more widely known Nobel Prize.  Ig Nobel prizes are awarded annually to celebrate unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research.

Among the 2023 winners was Jan Zalasiewicz of Poland who earned the chemistry and geology Ig Nobel prize for explaining why scientists like to lick rocks.  “Licking the rock, of course, is part of the geologist’s and paleontologist’s armory of tried-and-much-tested techniques used to help survive in the field,” Zalasiewicz wrote in The Paleontological Association newsletter in 2017. “Wetting the surface allows fossil and mineral textures to stand out sharply, rather than being lost in the blur of intersecting micro-reflections and micro-refractions that come out of a dry surface.”

See, that’s it.  I also lick rocks to better assess them as a specimen for my collection. And some don’t taste particularly bad.

—Mitchell Hegman

Migrating Butterflies

While driving across the north valley yesterday, I witnessed something I don’t ever recall seeing before. I saw dozens of butterflies flying southward just above the tall prairie bunchgrass and fields of alfalfa. I also saw a handful of them flitting past my house. The butterflies appeared brown on the underside of the wings and orange on the upper side, with a dark border along the edge.

I tried to catch a close look at one of the butterflies, but they seemed obsessed with pushing across the expanse, as if completely caught up in migration mode. None of them ever alighted near me. A bit of online research led me to Montana Field Guide and a page featuring the California tortoiseshell butterfly. I think that’s our critter. The tortoiseshell migrates west and south in September and October, but I have never noticed them before yesterday.

PHOTO: Wikipedia

—Mitchell Hegman

Our Mountain Drive

Following a quick stop at the cabin, Desiree and I veered north into the high elevations above Lincoln, Montana. The roads there tend to twist back on themselves and throw you from side to side, but the views at some open turns are handsome enough that you need to stop and simply take them in.

I love Montana’s landscapes. My love runs deep for the high-bucking mountains, the long plains, and the rivers lashing through it all. “There is little I enjoy more than driving these mountain roads,” I told Desiree as we ascended a long incline dappled with shadow and light.

“I love it, too,” Desiree responded.

The thing is, my island girl meant it. Though she has been here for less than two years, the landscape has already grasped something deep within her. She captures images of each mountain range as we drive from place to place. Every wildflower within view is studied appropriately.

Today, I am sharing photographs I captured on our latest mountain drive.

—Mitchell Hegman

Naked Man Orchids

Not everyone appreciates seeing a naked man. In fact, you may count me in on that mix. But what if a pretty flower were comprised of a collection of naked men? Might that change your tune?

Turns out there is an orchid (always a strange family of flowers) called the “naked man orchid” that fits the bill here. Orchis italica is a species native to the Mediterranean region and is known for its flower's remarkable resemblance to a tiny naked man, with outstretched arms and legs. It thrives in rocky or grassy habitats, typically blooms in spring to early summer, and relies on solitary bees and wasps as its primary pollinators.

Apparently, solitary bees and wasps like a naked man. Go figure.

I have posted a short video featuring naked man orchids. You are welcome to thank me later.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJfX0jUmo-w

Fall Rain

Here in my corner of the Prickly Pear Valley, annual rainfall stumbles and falls flat on its face before reaching 12 inches. That’s pretty sparse for moisture, especially when you consider the average annual rainfall across the U.S. mainland measures in at around 30 inches. Montana, as a whole, ranks as the 6th driest state in the contiguous collection, capturing a mere 15.2 inches of moisture annually. At the other end of the scale, Louisiana is the rainiest of the lower 48 states, raking in some 56.9 inches of rainfall (4.7 inches monthly).

I bring this up in light of the rain I recently captured in my rain gauge. Yesterday morning, I found nearly 1½ inches in my gauge, all collected in the two days previous. That’s a lot for us and it's a welcome start for fall, which officially arrived just yesterday. In addition to making the plants happy, the rain cleared the air of smoke from nearby prescribed burns.

After the Rains

My Rain Capture

—Mitchell Hegman

Sources: https://a-z-animals.com, https://www.currentresults.com

Thought For the Day

Not everyone can say they have a nice ceiling and clean teeth.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Kinky Friedman Said

If you are not familiar, Kinky Friedman is a singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, and politician. I have two of his songs in my library. I appreciate his gravelly voice. Wikipedia claims Friedman styles himself after Will Rogers and Mark Twain. Following are three Kinky Friedman quotes:

—"Remember: Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. All y'all's is plural possessive.”

—"I support gay marriage. I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”

—"A happy childhood... is the worst possible preparation for life.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Ceiling Report, September 20, 2023

After taking considerable time off on my master bedroom ceiling project, I threw a shift of work into the cove lighting yesterday. Actually, a good stretch of the time off was consumed by my search for a proper lighting source. I desired something simple: an LED source, but not LEDs powered by a fancy driver offering multi-colors and requiring a proprietary controller. An unpretentious string of bright LEDs would do. I also wanted a 5000 Kelvin (cool white) light output. After considerable searching, I found a 70-foot, 120-volt, flexible string that met all my requirements, including a requirement that I could cut the string to a length matching my cove.

Yesterday, I unfurled the string and fired it up to make sure the entire length functioned properly. Satisfied with the results of that, I stuffed the string up inside the cove and then tested it one more time. I am sharing two smartphone pictures I captured while working on the lights.

Testing the String

LED String Stuffed in the Cove

—Mitchell Hegman

Smooth White Stones

Within a few weeks of arriving here in Montana, Desiree began collecting smooth white stones as we walked the rock-strewn shoulders of diluvia near my house. The stones were swept here to my corner of the valley by great flooding at the end of the last ice age, some 10 thousand years ago. The white stones definitely stand out in the landscape, and Desiree gathered them with appropriate enthusiasm, which impressed me. Better yet, Desiree appreciates the white stones enough that she fashioned a small display of them on the sill of the window at our kitchen sink. I have been placing rocks on display in my personal spaces since I was a toddler. A girl willing to place rocks on the windowsill is obviously someone I needed to marry.

Desiree’s White Stones   

—Mitchell Hegman

My Latest MLM

A few years back, I wrote about CLMs. CLM is the acronym for “career-limiting maneuver,” which occurs when you make a serious mistake at work. Say, for example, you are an accountant and you drop a bunch of zeros on a tax return. That's a CLM.

Late yesterday afternoon, I made an MLM, a “marriage-limiting maneuver.” As you might now imagine, an MLM occurs when you do something egregious to your spouse. I didn't do direct harm to Desiree, thankfully, but I did harm some of her plants. If you know anything about Filipinas, harming a favored plant is hideous at best.

Iris flowers have become a particular favorite for Desiree since her arrival here in Montana. Desiree spent part of yesterday afternoon carefully prepping the ground and then planting some iris bulbs she recently purchased. She planted the bulbs alongside the driveway in a spot we both deemed safe from harm. Not an hour after she planted the iris, while wrangling my truck around on the driveway, I dropped a front tire off the concrete drive and mashed the iris deep into the ground.

An MLM for certain. Fortunately, Desiree has a soft disposition and recognizes my tendency to be a moron. Rather than getting angry with me, she quickly performed emergency procedures to dig up and replant the bulbs, which seemed without serious injury.

I suppose there is a lesson somewhere in this, but that will be of no help when the next MLM comes along.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Few More Observations

• My spelling is sometimes so far off the mark, spellcheck will offer me as the correct spelling six or so words I have never seen in my life.
• In the last few years, I think my muscles have developed hydraulic leaks.
• I have learned not to ask at the beginning of any endeavor: “What could possibly go wrong?”
• The guy who wrote that song, “Everything is Beautiful,” never had herpes.
• My buddy has been trying to make “disheveled” an accepted fashion thing, but it’s not working.
• A job that requires a sharp knife is likely something I should not do.
• The good news is that we watching a lot less television.  The bad news is we are staring at our phone.

—Mitchell Hegman

Dirt Behind My Ears

I don’t think my mother had a sixth sense exactly, but she always seemed one step ahead of me when I was a kid.  I didn’t get away with any malfeasance.  One thing that regularly mystified me was how she always knew when I had dirt behind my ears.  Granted, I was a filthy kid.  I spent a lot of time digging and flinging dirt all around the place, but getting dirt behind your ears takes real effort.    

I can recall tromping inside the house at the end of the day and having Mother immediately send me to wash up in the bathroom.  As soon as I reappeared, she would ask, “Did you wash behind your ears?”

“Yes.”

“No, you didn’t”

“I did.”

“Go get a damp washcloth and come back here.”

You know how this story ends.  Every time I came back, Mother quickly scrubbed behind my ears and then showed me the cloth.  “See here?  Dirt.”

Every time I looked at the cloth, there it was: dirt.

—Mitchell Hegman

Silver Lining

 Rilo Kiley was an American indie rock band that formed in 1998.  They remained a viable group until 2014.  The song “Silver Lining” was written by frontwoman Jenny Lewis in 2007.  Even though the song is essentially celebrating a woman breaking up with a man, I find it irresistible. 

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVtSSCzASR0

Reality Check

While chatting with a buddy on the phone, he mentioned that another friend of ours is scheduled for a knee replacement in the near future. “That’s not good,” I said. Then I added, “They used to wait until folks got older before performing that kind of surgery.” Almost immediately, the weighty numbers comprising my age fell across me. “Oh, wait, I forgot our age.  Never mind.”

—Mitchell Hegman

A Logical Question

A friend of mine suffered a fractured ankle while hiking alone. I recently bumped into him and managed to gain the details. While hiking a rugged, high mountain trail not far from Helena, he chanced upon what he thought might be red jasper stone. Tumbled and polished, red jasper can be stunning to behold. Naturally, he filled his backpack with specimens to take home.

Hiking back down the trail proved tricky, especially with a backpack full of stones. At some point, his footing failed him. In the quick version of this, he crumpled down, folding his ankle back in an ugly, impossible way. After gathering himself together and attempting to resume his descent, he quickly realized he could not go on; his ankle was angry and utterly failing him. To his credit, he was carrying an emergency satellite phone, which he used to contact help. After something near a half-dozen hours, a rescue team reached my friend and worked him back down the mountain.

As a rock collector, I asked the next logical question: “So, were you able to save any of the rocks?”

My friend smiled. “No,” he responded.

—Mitchell Hegman

Photo: Amazon

Altered Skyline

Helena, Montana, offers an impressive skyline. Nestled against a Rocky Mountain backdrop, four architectural features rise prominently above the heart of the community. First, there is the Montana State Capitol building. West of there, closer to Last Chance Gulch, a trio of features stands tall: the Old Fire Tower, the minaret on the Helena Civic Center, and, above all, the Cathedral of Saint Helena.

On a visit to downtown Helena the other day, Desiree and I found the skyline altered. The southern tower of the cathedral is presently fully encased in scaffolding and is undergoing an extensive restoration.

My father found high-voltage transmission lines festooned across hills and mountains beautiful. While I find transmission lines impressive, I cannot quite reach "beautiful" in my thinking. The scaffolding erected around the cathedral tower is a similar construct. Impressive for certain. From some angles, the scaffolding verges on beautiful. On a trip to downtown Helena, Desiree and I walked near the cathedral for a closer look. I am sharing an image from just below the signature landmark.

The Cathedral in Scaffolding

—Mitchell Hegman

Popsicles for Dinner

When I first saw what Desiree had prepared for our campfire dinner at the cabin, I thought she had designs of serving popsicles as our entrée. Turns out, she had prepared marinated chicken on skewers. We cooked those, together with fresh corn, over our campfire for our dinner on an overnight stay at the cabin.

We cooked and enjoyed our dinner in the perfect blue-sky calm of September. The only sound reaching us in our narrow mountain valley was that of the nearby creek murmuring as it flexed its silvery muscles while clearing a small waterfall Desiree constructed from shale talus last year.

Desiree has a way of transforming dinner into a beautiful, miniature adventure. This dinner firmly qualifies for that.

Desiree With Our “Popsicles”

Corn Over the Fire

Our Campfire Dinner

—Mitchell Hegman

Creepy Albeit Impressive

Some time ago (specifically at my birth), we established my distaste for spiders. I object, first, to the number of legs they have. In my estimation, 'creepy' starts with six legs. Spiders have eight. Additionally, spiders are ruthless predators with fangs. Some spiders are poisonous. Not good.

And then we have the webs spiders make. That's another creepy thing, maybe more so than having eight legs. Just in writing this, I shudder, feeling that sensation of walking into a web, the strands tugging at you in their little macabre way.

Yesterday, I discovered in my garage the most massive spider web I have ever found. The web, constructed by what we call a cookie spider (known as a cat-faced spider to others), spanned an area of 5 feet in one direction and 4 feet in the other. The entire window next to where I park my truck was encased in a web.

I quickly swept the web and spider up into a broom and carried the whole mess outside. The spider remained unharmed and is free to carry on outside.

The Spider Web

—Mitchell Hegman

Murder by Yoga

I read the following on a UPI internet news feed:

"Police descended on a community space in Britain when some local dog walkers mistook a yoga class's group meditation exercise for the results of a 'ritual mass murder.' The Seascape Cafe at the North Sea Observatory in Chapel St. Leonards, England, detailed the unusual incident in a Facebook post.

'If anyone heard the mass of police sirens in Chapel St. Leonard's at 9:30 p.m. last night, then please be reassured,' the post said. 'They were on their way to the Observatory after someone had reported a mass killing in our building. Having seen several people laying on the floor... which actually turned out to be the yoga class in meditation.'”

Okay, that's a strange story and possibly funny, but there actually is a murderous kind of yoga. It's called hot yoga. Hot yoga lures in unsuspecting victims under the guise of exercise. Hapless 'class participants' perform a series of difficult yoga exercises under ridiculously hot and humid conditions. Apparently, some hot yoga practices seek to replicate the heat and humidity of India, where yoga originated. A great deal of sweating is necessarily involved with these practices.

A friend of mine once attended a hot yoga class. “How was it?” I asked him the day after his hot yoga experience.

“It feels good when you are done,” he responded.

“I can only imagine,” I said. “I feel pretty good about being done with it before I ever started.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Our Personal Big Sky

On most days, Desiree and I soak in the hot tub first thing in the morning, and at some point in the evening.  Since our tub is outside, we participate in the weather du jour, which, in Montana, can range anywhere between tropical and frigid.  At the same time, this also affords us an opportunity to enjoy our own personal big sky, which ranges from dark and stormy to cerulean and clear.  Today, I am sharing a photograph of me enjoying our personal (and lovely) big sky a couple of evenings back.

—Mitchell Hegman

Completing My Chores

Early in the morning, I dutifully gazed up at the stars and located Orion, who is a bit askew this time of year. I chopped the tall seed heads from the yucca because aphids and boring insects had made them ugly and desiccated. I unearthed and removed both smooth and jagged stones from the soil in the asparagus bed. I washed a few starry dishes and sealed a few windows in preparation for autumn. I kissed my girl, searched my backyard for that fugitive in Pennsylvania, and swept the kitchen floor.

Full disclosure: kissing my girl is not a chore.

—Mitchell Hegman

Unusual Takedown Idioms

1. She patched the wrong pocket, twice.
2. That dude has a lot of boat but no lake.
3. He doesn’t have enough soap in his dispenser.
4. It’s pretty obvious her dryer’s lint catchier isn’t doing much catching.
5. He stopped defying gravity a long time ago.
6. She found lost and kept it.
7. I’d say he forgot to flip his burger today.
8. Her drone flies in only one direction.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Banded Woolly Bear

Pyrrharctia Isabella, more commonly known as a banded woolly bear, is the caterpillar stage of the Isabella Tiger Moth. The caterpillars emerge from eggs in late summer and early fall in temperate climates. They remain active and feed on broadleaf plants until cold weather sets in. When the weather begins to cool, the woolly bears—sometimes in a migrating mass of caterpillars—seek out protected places in the understory: under deadfall, under leaves, or in root tangles. The woolly bears overwinter by curling into a coil and more or less freezing solid. Even the heart of the caterpillar stops beating. In the spring, the caterpillar emerges and pupates before becoming a moth.

Interestingly, in the Arctic, due to the short growing season for vegetation, the woolly bear must feed for several summers and freeze again each winter before becoming a moth.

Folklore holds that the thickness of the dark middle color band is a predictor of winter. If the dark band is thin, the winter will be severe; if the band is thick, the winter will be mild. The middle band, as a certain fact, grows wider as the caterpillar ages.

On a trip to the mountains with Desiree, I found a handsome woolly bear marching across the leaves of a berry bush. I am sharing a photograph of the woolly bear. The leaves on the bush are already blushing with fall colors.

—Mitchell Hegman

NOTE: The body of this blog is a repeat from a blog I posted in 2013

Dedication

Over the weekend, we had a few overnight camping guests. At sunset on Sunday night, one of the adults accidentally overturned two tubs filled with Legos. In doing so, the collections of two boys' Legos dumped into a sprawling, singular mix in the grass (wet from recent rains).

If you know anything about Legos, you know they are a big deal to young boys. Mixing sets together is sacrilege. Upon hearing about the mishap, one of the boys, a six-year-old, grabbed a hat with headlamps and set out to retrieve his Legos from the pile. To make sure he gathered his collection of pieces, he assembled from memory three toys he has constructed from the collection.

I and several adults offered to help and suggested he could wait until morning light. “I will get them now,” he insisted. The boy worked constantly for the better part of two hours without so much as looking up. His focus was extraordinary. In the end, he retrieved all of his Legos from the mess. Impressive stuff. Few adults could have managed what he did.

Lego Search

—Mitchell Hegman

Ringling, Ringling

Jimmy Buffett, someone I consider one of the best American storytellers, passed away the other day. Jimmy wrote songs expressing stories that needed to be told. Musically, he remained authentic throughout his career. But he still managed to amass nearly a billion dollars through savvy business dealings that included resorts, restaurants, casinos, cruises, and merchandise.

Jimmy had a lot of Montana connections, including a sister married to the noted Montana writer Thomas McGuane. Buffett wrote several songs with themes about Montana. Today, I am sharing a song he wrote about the tiny town of Ringling, Montana.

RIP, Jimmy Buffett.

—Mitchell Hegman

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

Famous Last Words

George Orwell, the author of "1984" and "Animal Farm," wrote the following last words: “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.” He died at the age of 46.

Vladimir Nabokov, most noted as the author of "Lolita," was also an entomologist, particularly interested in butterflies. His last words were: “A certain butterfly is already on the wing.”

Drummer Buddy Rich died after surgery in 1987. As he was being prepped for surgery, a nurse asked him, “Is there anything you can’t take?” Rich replied, “Yeah, country music.”

Percy Grainger was an Australian composer who, with his dying words, told his wife Ella, “You’re the only one I like.”

Derek Jarman was a writer and filmmaker best known for his avant-garde art films. His last words were, “I want the world to be filled with white fluffy duckies.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: https://www.mentalfloss.com

Food and a Nice Place to Overwinter

According to Montana State University (MSU), several “social wasps” thrive in Montana. At first glance, I took 'social' to mean wasps that get up in your face and try to steal your food while you are eating it. Turns out the term “social wasp” refers to a type of wasp that lives in colonies and exhibits social behavior within their groups. Social wasps are known for their complex social structures, which typically include a queen, worker wasps, and male wasps.

An article posted by MSU noted: “Except for the western yellowjacket, social wasps are typically not aggressive unless their nest is disturbed. Most are beneficial and feed on a lot of our garden pests. Our most common wasps are bald-faced hornets, aerial yellowjackets, western yellowjackets, and paper wasps.”

I can attest to the whole aggressive-if-their-nest-is-disturbed thing. They most certainly are. I have been there. The phrase “stinging hordes” immediately comes to mind here.

I bring this stuff up because a wasp activation switch or button of some sort must have been activated recently. In the last few days, I have seen a significant number of yellowjackets poking around outside my house. Apparently, they are sensing the end of summer. In the fall, new adult wasps leave their homes in search of food and places to start new colonies. It seems many of them fancy the idea of living alongside me.

I have mixed feelings about this.

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: https://urbanipm.montana.edu

Weird Life

There are some weird forms of life around us.  For me, Kanye West immediately comes to mind in this regard.  And then yesterday, in the process of repairing my pontoon boat trailer, I discovered a strange fugus growing on the carpeting covering one of the rails that guides and holds in place the pontoons when my boat is loaded on the trailer.

How specialized and odd is a fungus that grows on the carpeting of a boat trailer?  Actually, I think the fungus was responsible for rotting and destroying the wooden rail enclosed within the carpeting—the reason repairs were required.

Fungi, which includes yeasts, rusts, smuts, mildews, molds, and mushrooms are a peculiar form of life.  They present a departure from conventional forms of life at the starting gate.  Unlike plants, they lack chlorophyll, rendering them incapable to photosynthesize and necessitating their reliance on external food sources. Instead of outright consuming food as animals do, fungi employ a distinct mode of nutrient absorption. Through their thread-like structures known as hyphae, fungi secrete enzymes that break down organic matter in their surroundings, converting it into nutrients that can be absorbed.

Frankly, the way fungi eat is creepy.  Under certain unfortunate conditions, mold, another type of fungus, can consume and kill a human in a matter of only a couple days.

I am sharing a couple photographs of the fungus I found on my boat trailer.  Watch out for this stuff.  I don’t trust it.

Boat Trailer

Fungus Example #1

Fungus Example #2

—Mitchell Hegman