A Firewood Day

Yesterday proved to be one of those days when I couldn’t focus on much of anything. My mind had apparently gone to the tavern without me, thrown down several shots of tequila, and passed out at the end of the bar. I didn’t feel like watching television, surfing the internet, reading, or doing anything requiring my undivided attention. Before long, I found myself out in the garage chopping wood with an axe.

I find chopping wood inordinately satisfying. I enjoy the physical aspects of it—especially driving the axe down to "whunk" apart a round. Every piece of wood offers a unique challenge, depending on the grain and the presence or absence of knots. Wood without knots tends to “twick” apart at once. Some pieces with knots require a long negotiation followed by concentrated ferocity.

I also have three species of tree: fir, spruce, and lodgepole pine. Each species behaves differently. Lodgepole pine readily flies apart because the trees lack big knots. Spruce is reluctant to split and tends to explode once you finally land a decisive blow with the axe. Straight-grained fir splits nicely, but the knots are first cousins to armored trucks—you’re not getting in easily.

I worked for a long time out in the garage, chopping rounds and large pieces into lengths of burning wood, kindling, and what I call “pick-up sticks.” Pick-up sticks are slightly bigger than kindling, and I use them crisscrossed above the kindling to catch and feed fire into the full-sized burning pieces I stuff into the woodstove. I felt better for it. My brain returned from the bar later in the afternoon, and I read a few articles about the Beatles online.

Firewood in My Garage

—Mitchell Hegman

Squanto

I spent a few minutes on the internet reading about the origin of our Thanksgiving celebration. The celebration really revolves around one Indigenous man named Squanto.

Squanto, a Patuxet Native American also known as Tisquantum, served a pivotal, albeit controversial, role in early Plymouth Colony history. Captured in 1614 and sold into slavery in Spain, he was freed by friars, spent time in England, and returned home in 1619 to find his tribe wiped out by European diseases brought by settlers across the ocean. In 1621, Squanto met the newly arrived Pilgrims. Employing his capability to speak English, he taught them survival skills like using fish as fertilizer and brokered peace between them and Wampanoag Chief Massasoit. This was crucial for the settlers' survival and led to the first Thanksgiving, a feast in which the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag celebrated together following a successful harvest season.

However, Squanto's legacy is complex. Some historians argue he manipulated tensions between settlers and tribes, seeking power over Massasoit. His alleged false claims about Massasoit plotting against the English led to his ostracism, though the Pilgrims protected him, defying Massasoit. Squanto developed a fever and died in 1622, leaving a legacy as both a Pilgrim savior and a divisive figure among his people. Here we are, 400 years later, celebrating Thanksgiving in our own ever-changing and sometimes divisive landscape.

—Mitchell Hegman

Image: Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Giving Thanks

Since today is Thanksgiving, I thought I would share a list of things I’m thankful for:

• Thanks to shoe manufacturers for coming up with shoes I can step into and wear without tying laces.
• I’m thankful that rain falls down more often than it falls up.
• Thanks to John Lennon for writing those lyrics in I Am the Walrus: “I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus, goo-goo g'joob,” so I can sing along: “I am the Hegman, they are the Hegman, I am the walrus, goo-goo g'joob.”
• Though I never saw this coming as a kid, I’m thankful for broccoli.
• Thank you, time and time again, duct tape.
• I’m thankful that my island girl has adopted Montana as her home.
• I’m thankful that my shoes don’t catch on fire from friction when I run really fast.
• Thanks to the National Electrical Code for making me install a lot of receptacles in my house—I really need them when Desiree starts in on the Christmas tree lights.
• Thanks to the Wampanoag and Pilgrims for starting this celebration in 1621.

—Mitchell Hegman

Image: lexingtonchronicle.com

Lemon Tree Update, October 2024

Our sunroom lemon tree started life in October 2022, when Desiree germinated a seed from a lemon and poked it into some rich soil in a small pot. The tree grew robustly for several months, but sometime in mid-2023, it fell under assault from spider mites. For months on end, I battled the mites with an assortment of agents that were supposed to either kill or discourage them. I managed to tamp down the mite infestation but failed to fully eradicate the little monsters.

Meanwhile, the tree continued to grow—a few mites still clinging on. Eventually, Desiree, I, and all the hotshot arborists on the interweb agreed the tree was too spindly. To address this, on September 23 of this year, Desiree grabbed a pair of snippers, marched into the sunroom, and pruned the tree wholesale. The gurus I consulted online prior to her snipping recommended cutting up to 25 percent of the “flagging” growth. Desiree likely approached 90 percent with her pruning. I will admit, I was somewhat alarmed.

Now, two months later, the lemon tree is bursting forth with vibrant new growth. Most impressively, the pruning alarmed the mites so much, they vanished entirely. I have posted three photographs of the lemon tree, including one from yesterday that features me and a Cold Smoke beer as a scale for size.

Spindly Lemon Tree Before Trimming, August 23, 2024

Desiree Trimming the Tree, September 17, 2024

Lemon Tree, November 25, 2024

—Mitchell Hegman

Alive for the First Time

Nicholas came alive on the third of October, which was strange because he was born on December fifth, twenty years earlier. His mother had often told him he was an accident, a claim that never made sense to Nicholas. Why would someone—his mother, in this case—accidentally go to the hospital and have a baby?

Nicholas did come alive accidentally. He had been trying to figure out why his toaster wasn’t working and had flayed it open while it was still energized—“plugged into the juice,” as his father would say. In Nicholas’s estimation, the disassembled toaster was not as interesting or mysterious as a fish in the same state. Then, as he thought this, his pinky finger inadvertently brushed against a shiny screw connecting a wire to a widget.

At once, the world smeared into a bright white light. The kitchen table, the cupboards, the entire house—everything sucked up inside Nicholas through the tip of his finger. He felt as if he were riding atop a shooting star.

An instant later, Nicholas found himself sprawled across the kitchen floor. Though achy and disoriented, he felt alive for the first time.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Deepest Blue

Our northern winters are long and can provide tough conditions. You will need a snow shovel, and where I live, you can expect a stretch of sub-zero temperatures at some point. But winter also has a handsome face. There is nothing that equals an entire landscape softened and whitewashed by several inches of freshly fallen snow.

As sunset approached yesterday, I walked along the lakeshore below my house. The lake lay dark and yet unfrozen, while the sky above displayed the deepest blue imaginable. All of this was highlighted by a layer of freshly fallen snow on the land and on the docks extending out into the dusky water.

Gorgeous. No other word.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Art of Forgetting

I think I broke my personal record for spaciness yesterday. I managed to space out in two rooms in a row. First, I wandered into the kitchen for something, only to realize, once I got there, that I had forgotten what I went in for. After scratching my head for an appropriate amount of time, I remembered something I needed to do in the bedroom and headed in that direction (with a side trip to the bathroom).

Upon arriving in the bedroom, I realized I had lost the thread entirely and had no idea why I was there. Leaning against the wall, I thought to myself, what did I want in the bedroom? I tapped my toes on the floor and stuck a finger in my ear, hoping for inspiration.

After several moments of mental freight train derailments and imaginary rodeo clowns getting smacked by angry bulls, I dragged myself back to the kitchen and pretended I wanted an apple.

—Mitchell Hegman

Wedding Band

A few moments ago, I panicked when I noticed my wedding band was not on my finger. I quickly scoured the house until I found it atop the bathroom vanity. I proudly wear my cheap silicone band. In my way of thinking, the value of the band lies in its symbolism, not the material from which it is made.

Back in my days of frequenting local taverns as a bachelor, I recall my friends commenting on women either wearing or not wearing wedding rings. I must confess, this was something to which I paid zero attention. At that time, I couldn’t even identify which finger should be adorned with the band.

Even today, while I feel wholly incomplete without my wedding ring, I still fail to notice whether others are wearing one. All I care about is my ring. It’s my ring that holds all the beauty and binding magic. The band is an essential part of my oneness with another.

—Mitchell Hegman

When a Turkey Meets a Hawk

For the last two weeks, a tom turkey has been hanging out around my house at various times of the day. Typically, I see the turkey strutting about, pecking at anything of interest. Yesterday, a movement amid the sagebrush below my back deck caught my eye. When I gave it my full attention, I saw the turkey standing there in full display, his tail feathers generously fanned out. I also immediately noticed the reason for the turkey’s display: only a few feet away, a hawk was perched atop the top rail of my post-and-pole fence. The tom was obviously trying to impress or intimidate the hawk.

Sadly, the tom had softened his stance by the time I managed grab my smartphone and capture a couple of photographs of the two big birds. I don’t know my hawks well enough to identify this one with certainty, but I can attest to the fact that it was pretty big—perhaps a goshawk or Cooper’s hawk.

I am posting two photographs of the encounter. They are not of great quality, but they do tell the story. Finally, the hawk flew off a minute or so after I took the pictures.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Special Place Reserved in Hell

I’ve always contended that a special place in hell should be reserved for anyone who loses a piece from a jigsaw puzzle. By “special place,” I mean a section of hell where all you have to eat is earthworms, and the sound of squealing tires is piped in for all eternity. This punishment especially applies to those who pass along a puzzle with a missing piece for someone else to assemble.

However, recent events have forced me to reconsider. It turns out I am one of those cursed individuals responsible for gifting someone a puzzle with a missing piece. The evidence? A nondescript puzzle piece I found after rearranging my dining room furniture. I can’t even identify which puzzle it belongs to, but I’m fairly certain I handed off that puzzle to someone else—I do that with almost every puzzle I complete.

This revelation has me rethinking my earlier judgment. Perhaps puzzle-piece misplacers aren’t as nefarious as I once believed. In light of this, I’m considering softening the punishment. Maybe, at the very least, the menu in that special section of hell could expand a bit.

The Missing Piece

—Mitchell Hegman

Fire Watch Duty

Desiree and I have developed a new habit. Each evening, now that winter is nudging at our toes, we engage in a session of “fire watch” duty. In the traditional sense, “fire watch” refers to the responsibility of monitoring a specific area to identify and respond to potential fire hazards, ensuring safety and compliance with fire prevention protocols. In our case, we are languishing in front of our wood stove—often “oohing” and “aahing”—as we watch waiflike flames mesh together, wavering, rising, and falling.

The colors produced by the fire are most impressive, showcasing flames streaked with blue, yellow, red, and orange.

I am sharing two images I captured of the flames within our stove. At the top of each image, you will note the grid of red-hot metal. That’s the catalytic combustor at work. Its task is to ignite and burn off smoke and gases emitted by the wood. To function efficiently, the combustor should be at a temperature of 500°F. Last night, the combustor temperature sensor indicated a reading slightly above 1,000°F for just a minute or two before settling down to something above 600°F.

I am amazed by how little smoke the wood stove emits while, at the same time, producing enough heat to keep the entire house cozy.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Victim

I have posted a photograph of our latest houseplant. It’s a fuchsia—and a victim. Somehow, it didn’t enjoy living in our sunroom and rather abruptly perished. Perhaps the fuchsia didn’t enjoy cohabitating with its immediate neighbors: a begonia and a geranium that forgot to be an annual and has carried on for nearly three years now.

This is our second fuchsia, actually. The first suffered much the same fate, though it dragged on for several months—even spitting out a couple of blossoms—before “giving up the ghost.”

Fuchsia plants are known for their vibrant, drooping flowers. They are native to Central and South America, with a few species found in New Zealand and Tahiti. According to the interweb, these tropical beauties thrive indoors when placed in bright, indirect light and kept in well-draining soil. To kill a fuchsia, allow Desiree and me to tend them for a spell. We’ll get the deed done.

Our Fuchsia

—Mitchell Hegman

My Mountain Woman

My island girl has changed status—she is no longer an island girl. Desiree is now a full-on mountain woman. She has fallen in love with the mountains of Montana in general, but she has particularly attached herself to our cabin property. Surprisingly, Desiree is often more eager to spend time at the cabin than I am, which is remarkable.

Over the weekend, despite relatively cold weather and recent snow, Desiree insisted on going to the cabin so she could clear willows overhanging her favorite fishing holes near our bridge.

“I’m going to get in the creek with my snippers,” she informed me.

“It’s going to be pretty cold,” I suggested.

“I’ve been wanting to clear the brush to make fishing easier for a long time.”

“Okay.”

After starting a fire in the cabin and helping me with a couple of chores, Desiree pulled on her waders and headed for the creek with tree-trimming snippers. I must admit, she greatly impressed me. Winter or not, she waded into the chilly waters and ratcheted her way into the brush arching over the running water. She remained in the creek for over an hour, whittling away the willows that most hindered her fishing.

Good stuff, that.

Desiree Clearing Bush Along the Creek Bank

Cutting Brush at a Fishing Hole

—Mitchell Hegman

Weird Stuff

• Jimi Hendrix played his guitar upside down.
• To date, not a single airplane has gotten stuck in the sky.
• Octopuses have three hearts; two of them stop beating when they swim.
• Bananas are berries, but strawberries aren’t. A strawberry is actually a multiple fruit receptacle.
• Wombat poop is cube-shaped, which prevents it from rolling away.
• A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
• Sharks existed before trees or dinosaurs.
• Humans can’t walk in a straight line without looking at something. If blindfolded, we gradually walk in a circle.
• Using a process of high pressure and high temperatures, peanut butter can be transformed into artificial diamonds.

—Mitchell Hegman

Dead Reckoning

Recall that summer so cold,

your young friend newly dead,

but still walking in your dreams,

a tainted lullaby spinning

against a backdrop of projects and grime.

In dreams, your friend’s face remained smooth,

but chill as pewter.

 

The last time you saw your friend,

she told you her body was a bag of sand.

One of the machines attending her clicked

and whirred conspicuously.

“I just want to jump again,” she said.

“Jump,” she repeated. “That’s all.”

 

When you left that day,

you drove long below a vast gray sky

toward some crooked mountains,

but failed to reach them.

 

—Mitchell Hegman

Wood in Space

Recently, an unusual box-like satellite named LignoSat hitched a ride into space aboard an unmanned SpaceX rocket launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. LignoSat is small, measuring a mere 4 inches across, but its most remarkable feature is that it is the first satellite constructed of wood.

After arriving at the International Space Station, the satellite will be released into outer space about a month later to test its strength and durability. Data transmitted from the satellite will allow researchers to monitor for signs of strain and determine whether the wooden structure can withstand the extreme temperature fluctuations of space.

Ultimately, LignoSat will re-enter Earth's atmosphere, and its Japanese developers expect the wooden material to burn up completely—potentially offering a way to avoid generating metal particles when retired satellites return to Earth. These particles could interfere with telecommunications and negatively impact the environment. In the future, researchers anticipate that most satellites may no longer be constructed of metal.

I find it particularly fascinating, if not outlandish, that our latest technological innovation in space science is a box made of wood.

LignoSat Satellite

—Mitchell Hegman

SOURCE: news.yahoo.com

Between Each Tick

Between each second’s tick of an antique clock resides an eternity—a quiet forever without despair, where all of our departed friends and loved ones have gathered. And let’s imagine, contrary to Sylvia Plath, that this isn’t a place where stars are “grinding, crumb by crumb, our own grist down to its bony face.” What if, instead, between each tick of the clock, the dead gather to play croquet and lavish one another with compliments?

—Mitchell Hegman

Learning by Making Mistakes

I am the type of person who learns by making mistakes. The biggest problem with that is, I haven’t yet figured out what kind of mistake I need to make to either balance my checkbook or convince my wife that I’m capable of dressing myself appropriately.

—Mitchell Hegman

Wicked Water

Water can be wicked. On this spectrum, you have floods on the extreme, treacherous end, and on the other end, you find gradual leaks. I would further classify gradual leaks as insidious. Some leaks may go unnoticed for years, all the while causing damage to water systems or structures.

When we were at the cabin a couple of weeks ago, Desiree noticed a discolored spot where the ceiling meets the outside wall in the loft. “The wall looks burned here,” she announced.

I immediately stepped closer for a better look. “That’s water damage,” I said grimly. “We have a leak in the roof.”

A quick investigation revealed that a rubber roof jack for a plumbing vent pipe was inverted on the roof, allowing water to pool around the vent and seep in alongside the PVC pipe. A week after discovering the leak, I opened up the wall to evaluate the extent of the damage. What I found was something my buddy Rodney terms “ungood.” Obviously, water had been leaking inside for many years. The insulation was soaked, and the framing members were rotting and infested with mold.

It’s sinister how such extensive damage can go unnoticed for so long. Without a sound and only drop by drop, the water invaded the cabin wall’s inner space. Upon reaching the fiberglass batting, the water wicked laterally, spreading deeper inside while feeding fungus and decay. I have posted a photograph of the wall after I opened it up. You’ll notice the hair dryer I duct-taped to the vacuum as a means to dry out the spaces within the wall.

The Loft Wall

—Mitchell Hegman

Unwinding the Sun

Desiree has been wanting to burn a heap of branches and dead twigs she trimmed from the pines and willows lining the drive from the main road to our cabin. Yesterday, given a calm day with ample snow on the ground, she put a match to the trimmings.

Desiree enjoys a fire. As I warmed myself by the fire of her making, I thought again about Buckminster Fuller’s quote: “Fire is the sun unwinding from the tree's log.” Years of sunshine were required to feed energy into the limbs and twigs Desiree had stacked onto the fire.

The fire grew quickly, unraveling all those years and deconstructing every limb and branch submitted to the thriving flames. It’s astonishing how quickly we can unwind the sun—and equally surprising how good it feels to stand by, watching the flames scissor higher and higher, our faces growing pink with released heat.

Desiree Feeding Her Fire

—Mitchell Hegman

Hauling Ashes

For the last week or so, I’ve been lighting a fire in the wood stove every morning as soon as I get up (read 4:00 a.m. here) to give the house a boost in heat. Within a couple of hours, I can usually raise the temperature in the living room by five or six degrees. Since the days have remained reasonably warm, I let the fire die out by mid-morning.

Naturally, the fires produce ashes, which I must clean out from time to time. As I was doing so recently, I recalled a phrase I’ve heard on occasion: “getting your ashes hauled.” Oddly enough, the phrase is a euphemism for having sex. Curious about the origins of such a bizarre expression, I consulted the interweb.

Apparently, the phrase “hauling ashes” emerged in the early 20th century. By the 1920s and 1930s, it had become popular in jazz and blues music, often used humorously or discreetly in song lyrics. Over time, it became a colorful euphemism across broader American slang, known for its playful, suggestive nature.

I’m posting a (not sexy) photograph of ashes I’m about to haul away.

Ashes From the Wood Stove

—Mitchell Hegman

To This Strange End

I asked the internet what the life expectancy of a rabbit in the wild might be. The answer turned out to be a mere 1 or 2 years, though under optimal conditions, a rabbit might reach 3 to 5 years. Granted, rabbits are cute, but they have it pretty rough. They reside near the bottom of the food chain. Where I live, a host of predators have rabbits on the menu: coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, and a variety of raptors. And, of course, they are stalked by disease.

Yesterday, I found a dead rabbit on the concrete apron in front of my garage door. The scene was both jarring and weirdly serene. Though stiff and cold, the rabbit appeared as though sleeping—no blood, not a single hair misplaced, no awkward pose.

Strange.

I was immediately filled with questions. What ended the rabbit’s life? Heart attack? An internal malignancy? Why did the rabbit come to die in that spot?

You can’t leave a rabbit lying dead at the front of your house and expect to carry on in an ordinary fashion. Given this, I gingerly carried the stiffened rabbit out onto the prairie and laid it on the ground amid some sagebrush. One way or another, the rabbit is now provender for something either bigger or smaller.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Afternoon Without Music

I tend to listen to music throughout the day. After waking in the morning, I watch the news on television while drinking coffee. After an hour or so, I flick off the television and crank up my stereo, leaving the music on for the rest of the day and into the early evening. Music is a constant as I drive. I have a boombox at my cabin, and one of my first actions upon arriving is to turn it on. My chosen music is something like a constant, pleasant breeze that accompanies and reassures me. I drift in and out of paying attention to the songs as needed.

Just to see what it felt like, I purposely turned off my music and tried puttering around the house in silence—just me and my own thoughts to fill the gaps as I fluttered from one task to the next. Left unaccompanied, my mind, I soon discovered, wanders off and pushes rocks off cliffs. It tips over full trash bins and screams at anything passing by. It runs off to find an anthill to kick.

Apparently, I need music to nudge me back on track when my mind begins to wander.

My music is playing again.

—Mitchell Hegman

Breaking Up

I watched an interesting case involving a murderess on the investigative crime series Forensic Files. Before murdering her husband and staging the scene to look like a suicide, the woman in question had engaged in a string of strange and violent acts with other men. One previous boyfriend had broken up with her after an argument. Well, the argument wasn’t as strong a reason to end things as the fact that she had lit him on fire while he lay sleeping in his bed after their tiff.

I gave this a little thought. I’m pretty sure I would also break up with someone if they set me on fire following a squabble. I don’t think that qualifies as “normal behavior,” no matter how abstract a concept that is.

—Mitchell Hegman

Winter Arrives

Montana wouldn’t be Montana without throwing an inclement twist in the weather at you. Yesterday, in this tradition, Desiree and I found ourselves driving across an open, summer-cured expanse of rangeland before abruptly entering a churning storm front—a virtual wall of falling snow extending from the uppermost reaches of the sky to the grasslands before us.

At once, we penetrated the undulating wall and entered winter.

Caught within swirls of snow, we ascended the whiplash curves to the crest of Flesher Pass and then descended into the Upper Blackfoot Valley and full-on snowscapes. “I love it,” Desiree said as we turned off the main highway and onto the unplowed road leading us toward a narrow mountain valley and our cabin. We stopped for photographs when we reached the bridge across the Blackfoot River, and stopped again before reaching the cabin so Desiree could pose among a stand of snow-covered pines.

“Winter is pretty,” Desiree declared.

“Yep, I’ll give you that.”

The Upper Blackfoot River

Desiree in Snowy Trees

First Snow at the Cabin

—Mitchell Hegman

Lesser-Known Mistakes

Following is a list of lesser-known mistakes:

• Threatening to water, move, trim, or uproot any of the (nearly 1,000) houseplants purchased and tended by your Filipina wife.
• Ordering a Merlot at a winery known exclusively for Pinot Noir.
• Saying “I don’t care what you put in it” in a country where bugs are on the menu.
• Purchasing a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine, anywhere.
• Naming your daughter Paige if your last name is Turner.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Small Self-Correction

I don’t owe any particular person an apology, but I do need to make a small self-correction. This has to do with something I often carp about: people leaving their empty shopping carts near where they parked their cars rather than pushing them back to the store or to the nearest cart return corral.

After finishing our shopping at a local grocery store, Desiree and I pushed our cart out the front door and headed for the car. Before long, we fell in behind a man who was slowly making his way along the sidewalk with his cart. His slow pace and obvious, halting gait revealed legitimate issues with walking. As providence would have it, he led us all the way to our car, which was parked only two spots away from his.

While we loaded our groceries into the car, the man did the same. After finishing, he pushed his cart against the wall of the store and slowly wobbled back to his car, struggling to stay upright the whole time. Watching him, I imagined how difficult it would be for him to make his way all the way from the cart return to his car. With that in mind, I coupled his cart with mine and returned both of them. In the future, I’ll try to remember that not every cart has been abandoned thoughtlessly.

—Mitchell Hegman

Crossing Bridges

Within scaffolds of clouds, my dear, you will find the waxing moon. Richard Brautigan once wrote: “The moon is Hamlet on a motorcycle coming down a dark road.” That’s not the right image for us. Sometimes, Brautigan tended to carry his metaphors not just one, but two bridges beyond where most of us are willing to go. And, yes, I did just explain that with my own metaphor.

Tonight, my dear, the moon is delicious.

There, we have crossed just one bridge.

—Mitchell Hegman

Boulders from the Batholith

My neighbor has what you would term a large disposable income. I have a modest disposable income. While I can purchase a few pretty, fist-sized rocks at the gem show and lug them home in a plastic bag, he can buy multi-ton boulders, have them shipped in on oversized rigs, and then set them strategically about his property with a crane.

He is actually doing so as I write this.

The boulders in question rolled in (the huge trucks rumbling, I might add) from the granite formations within the Boulder Batholith amid the Elkhorn Mountains. The boulders are impressive, some approaching the size of a small automobile. Given that granite weighs 165 pounds per cubic foot, I’m thinking most of these monsters weigh somewhere north of 30,000 pounds. And, me being me, I love rocks of any size, so I approve.

I am posting a series of images of the boulders, including one featuring a crew setting one at the fork of the road in front of our house and two with Desiree (instead of a Cold Smoke beer) near more boulders as a reference for size.

Setting a Boulder at the Fork in the Road in Front of my House

Final Placement (With My House in the Background)

More Boulders Near the Crane

A Boulder Set Where Our Spur Originates at the Main Road 

—Mitchell Hegman

Two Cold Smoke Comparisons

On a drive home after a trip to town, my car’s sophisticated (read: “annoying” fifty percent of the time) electronic monitoring system alerted me to a low tire on the rear passenger side. I immediately flipped the car around and headed to the tire shop. I determined long ago that a low tire is usually an indication of a puncture caused by something like a nail or screw.

As soon as the tech at the shop removed the tire, he spotted a nail lodged between two sets of treads. After repairing the tire, he handed me the nail, which turned out to be a large sinker, and I set out for home again.

While driving home this time, I came across a particularly annoying piece of “litter” just off the Frontage Road: a cushion from a sofa. I actually noticed it a week ago. This time, I stopped and tossed it into the back of my car. Below are photographs of the nail and sofa cushion, each displayed with a can of Cold Smoke beer for an accurate reference of relative size.

Nail and Cold Smoke

Litter and Cold Smoke

—Mitchell Hegman