Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

What’s in a Name: Paint Colors

Over the years, I’ve done my share of shopping for paint to apply to the walls of my house and cabin. The names some paint manufacturers assign to their colors have often impressed me on a scale that ranges from amusing to baffling. My small bathroom, for example, is colored “Navajo White,” a white that aspires, at some level, to become yellow. Somewhere along the line, I recall purchasing “Distant Thunder,” a shade we simply called gray when first learning the names of things.

Following are a few more paint colors for you to consider:

  • Dead Salmon – A dusty pinkish-brown shade from Farrow & Ball, supposedly named after a historic painting technique rather than an expired fish.
  • Elephant’s Breath – A warm gray with a hint of lilac, also from Farrow & Ball, with a name that sparks more curiosity than clarity.
  • Arsenic – A strikingly bright green from Farrow & Ball, named after the poisonous compound historically used in pigments.
  • Drunk Tank Pink – A vivid bubblegum pink, named for its supposed calming effect on aggressive individuals in holding cells.
  • Smoky Monkey – A moody, charcoal-gray shade with a somewhat playful name.

Dead Salmon

—Mitchell Hegman

Monday, February 3, 2025

Mount Grinnell

Mount Grinnell is a massive, rocky peak in Glacier National Park, Montana, rising abruptly to 8,851 feet in the Many Glacier region. Named after explorer and conservationist George Bird Grinnell, the mountain is flanked by Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine. The Many Glacier area is frequented by grizzly bears and offers spectacular vistas of rough-hewn mountains, stair-stepping waterfalls, and an abundance of wildflowers.

Though it’s somewhat out of the way, I try to visit Many Glacier whenever I tour the park. Just last September, Desiree and I spent part of a day there. While there, we both took dozens of photographs. Late last week, we started piecing together a new jigsaw puzzle someone gifted us. The puzzle, as it turns out, is a photograph of Grinnell Peak.

“You know,” I told Desiree as we were staring at the puzzle in progress, “I have a picture of nearly the same view on my phone from our trip last fall.”

After a little scrolling, I found the image on my phone. Working on a puzzle with a subject adds another pleasurable dimension to the task.

After finding the image of the peak on my screen, I placed my phone on the table and had Desiree take a photograph of it. I am sharing that photograph here today.

Good stuff, this.

Mount Grinnell

—Mitchell Hegman

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Phishing

Phishing is a type of cyberattack in which scammers attempt to trick individuals into providing sensitive information, such as login credentials, financial details, or personal data, by posing as legitimate entities. Yesterday, a phishing email somehow squeezed through my various layers of malware protection and landed in my inbox. The email thanked me for the purchase of “device protection” and then, in bold letters below, listed a phone number I could call if I wanted to cancel—the point at which someone would try to extract information from me.

The email featured several hallmarks of a scam. First, the sender's email address did not match the company name. Second, the grammar was wonky, as revealed in this sample: “Within a day, USD 375.99 will be taken out of your account. If you would want to cancel or request a refund, please contact our customer service staff right once.”

Honestly, it takes a lot for me to resist the urge to call the number and try to confuse or frustrate the scammers, but that would give them an opportunity to obtain my phone number.

—Mitchell Hegman

Saturday, February 1, 2025

The Rock Collector

Apparently, the passenger-side rear tire on my car enjoys collecting rocks just as much as I do. It has collected two rocks in the last six months, requiring me to have the tire repaired each time.

Interestingly, my tire has wholly different criteria than I do for choosing which rocks it collects. The tire goes for sharply edged, rather plain-looking specimens. I, on the other hand, am drawn to more colorful rocks, especially those rounded and polished by the forces of nature. Just the same, I have added the specimens collected by my tire to my own rock collection.

I’m sharing a photograph featuring the two rocks picked up by my tire, along with a can of Cold Smoke beer as a reference for size. The specimen on the right is the most recent.

My Tire’s Rock Collection

—Mitchell Hegman

Friday, January 31, 2025

Bumper Stickers

My favorite bumper sticker of all time is this: “Mean People Suck.”

Just for fun, I asked AI to compile a list of other notable bumper stickers. Here are some of the best ones:

  • "Not all who wander are lost… except me. I’m lost."
  • "I’m not arguing. I’m just explaining why I’m right."
  • "My driving scares me too."
  • "Honk if you love peace and quiet."
  • "If you can read this, I’m not impressed. Most people can read."

—Mitchell Hegman

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Our First Crab Dinner

 ME: (As Desiree sat me down with a plate of crab legs) “Where’s the butter?”

DESIREE: “Butter?”

ME: “Yeah. Butter for dipping the crab legs.”

DESIREE: (offering a quizzical expression) ?

ME: “If you serve crab or lobster around these parts, you have to have butter. It’s the law. And if it isn’t the law, it should be.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

In the Strange of a Winter Night

Living far out in the country, my trash disposal collection system is somewhat odd. Biweekly, a rumbling truck descends onto the prairie out in front of my house and extends a mechanical arm to pick up my bin and empty my trash into its massive collection box.

I happened to be awake at 4:10 a.m. this morning when the trash collection truck arrived, spangled in bright lights. For no particular reason, I decided at 4:14 a.m. to retrieve my bin and drag it back to my house.

Let me assure you, it’s a different world at 4:14 a.m. on a January morning in far north Montana. I stepped out into a vast and dark expanse. The temperature stood somewhere in the single digits. This is not a world we are naturally equipped to survive in. The hard-packed snow on my drive squeaked under my shoes as I left the shroud of light from my open garage door and headed toward my bin.

Out on the open prairie, in the strange of a winter night, while dragging my bin back home, I stopped in my tracks. Beautiful! I was surrounded by a dome of flexing stars. The white, snowy expanse appeared light blue—soft in color. Once I had stopped, the world became soundless. Just me and all those stars directing their valuable light at me.

—Mitchell Hegman

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Roosters

I overheard Desiree talking with her father on FaceTime. As they spoke, I could hear, from her father’s end, one of the local roosters crowing in the background. No matter where you live in the Philippines, whether in Metro Manila or a faraway province, roosters are a ubiquitous feature of daily life.

In the early days of our relationship, when Desiree and I were communicating via Facebook and smartphones, I regularly heard her neighbors’ roosters crowing in the cityscape of Makati. While you might imagine having roosters crowing all around you as an annoyance, I rather quickly adapted to and even began to expect the sound in the background.

The nearest equivalent in my life growing up in East Helena, Montana, was the local smelter’s shift-change whistle, which regularly shrieked over the town. The smelter and the whistle are long gone now, but I find myself missing the shrill sound on some level.

—Mitchell Hegman

Monday, January 27, 2025

Before and After

I finally completed the most persnickety details of our bathroom remodel: applying a finish to the framed walls around the whirl tub. The only task remaining to complete the remodel is installing the vanity when it arrives in a couple of weeks.

It took me the better part of six days to cut, whitewash, and apply the irregular sections of wood around the whirl tub. The two 45-degree outside corners didn’t make the process any easier. I initially wanted to use stacked stone around the tub, but I needed ready access on one side in case the pump for the jets fails or acts up in some way. Desiree and I ultimately decided to use wood to create something resembling stacked stone. By using wood, I was able to construct a removable panel on one side, secured by just four screws, for easy access.

I’ve posted a series of three photographs from the project.

First Stage of the Tub Woodwork

The Finished Product

The Bathroom Before and After

—Mitchell Hegman

Sunday, January 26, 2025

On Balance

On October 12, 1935, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck near East Helena, Montana, causing widespread damage and marking the beginning of an earthquake swarm.

Some seventy-plus years later, I entered a classroom in Knoxville, Tennessee, while attending training related to my role as an apprenticeship instructor. Upon entering the classroom, I noticed the image of a man balancing on his head atop a structure high above the ground on the computer screen of another attendee. It was only my second day of the class, and I didn’t really know the man, but the photograph intrigued me. I asked, “Where is that photograph from?”

“That was taken at a smelter in East Helena, Montana.”

“What? No kidding?” I couldn’t contain my shock. “That’s my hometown!”

We introduced ourselves. The gentleman with the photograph, it turned out, was a lineman instructor from Montana. His image brought us back to the earthquake swarms of 1935. The tremors had damaged the top section of one of the smokestacks at the plant. Not long after, brick masons repaired it, and metal rings were installed around the structure. In the image, one of the masons is performing a headstand on the edge of a platform constructed around the stack. If you look closely, you can see the Sleeping Giant far across the open valley in the background on the left.

That headstand, while making for an intriguing photograph, is a breathtakingly bad idea. It represents the completely unnecessary risks posed by horseplay at the job site. I now share this photograph in several of the safety classes I teach.

On Balance

—Mitchell Hegman

Saturday, January 25, 2025

A Winter Soak Beneath a Roving Moon

My far north landscape has gone quiet beneath a fresh mantle of snow. The pine trees hold forth white tufts of snow in delicate balance. The air is sharp tonight, only a few degrees south of what I consider frigid. Above, the moon roves through tattered clouds. It peeks out at every opportunity, deliberate and unrelenting. Between the drifting veils, stars sparkle and flex.

The chill air stings my face as I make my way to the hot tub and whisk away the powder snow before tilting open the cover and allowing wisps of steam to thread together and envelop me. After slipping into the perfectly warm water, I sit back and allow every muscle to relax.

I can literally feel the silence around me. Not an empty silence, this. Here, beneath the wandering moon and the watchful stars, time relaxes its edges. The heat holds me steady, thawing the day’s small grievances, while the sky above slowly revolves around me.

Even deep in the winter, the sky is my garden. I am, at once, a part of the great motions there and apart from them. Tonight, the snow has softened the world, and the moon has perfectly choreographed its movements. I am the warmth at the edge of eternity.

—Mitchell Hegman

Friday, January 24, 2025

A White Hole

You are likely familiar with black holes in space. A black hole is a region in space where gravity is so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape. It forms when a massive star collapses under its own gravity, compressing its mass into an infinitely dense point called a singularity, surrounded by an event horizon—the boundary beyond which escape is impossible. Black holes influence their surroundings by warping spacetime.

While piecing together the night sky in a jigsaw puzzle that Desiree and I have been working on, I encountered a white hole. This white hole appeared because I have been unable to successfully fit pieces into one area, even though I managed to assemble the field all around it. The section where the white hole exists is made up of the same colors as everything around it. To me, there is no apparent reason why I can’t find the proper pieces and fit them in place. I don’t know why the hole formed. I can’t comprehend the science behind this one, but something is warping here, too.

I’m sharing a photograph of the white hole.

The White Hole

The Full Puzzle Image

—Mitchell Hegman

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Something Jerry Seinfeld Said

 — “A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.”

— “Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.”

— “Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is on TV.”

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Pin Nailer

Working with a pneumatic pin nailer is not for someone in a hurry. Pin nailers are notoriously finicky, requiring a lot of coaxing and ongoing maintenance. You will regularly be forced to stop and clear a jammed pin. Additionally, my pin nailer often fires blanks.

All of this is ultimately worthwhile, of course, because pins don’t leave large holes to be filled after you’ve nailed a piece of wood or other material in place.

Jams, when they occur, are obvious. Shooting blanks, however, is not. I have mistakenly pumped blanks shots into trim boards, only to have the boards slip out of place when I relinquish my hold on them. To ensure the nailer is functioning, I have developed a habit of nailing into a length of test wood every few shots. By the end of a day, my test shots create what looks like a pretty wicked weapon.

I am sharing a photograph of my length of test wood from work on some trim in the bathroom yesterday.

Pins in My Practice Wood

—Mitchell Hegman

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

The Mirror in the Toilet Tank

My late wife believed in luck—both good and bad. When, in 1996, she had the terrible misfortune of being stricken with transverse myelitis, a malady that permanently disabled her, she redoubled her efforts to acquire better luck. The main front in this endeavor was applying the art of feng shui to the spaces within our house. This can be incredibly complicated and sometimes a bit strange.

To bring our house into compliance with the tenets of feng shui, she ensured our bed faced east to inspire better health and concentration. She was cautious about the placement of sharp objects, such as scissors and knives, which can invite harm. She hung chimes with Chinese coins at the entry doors to our house. She placed mirrors face up in the toilet tanks to deflect vital chi back up instead of allowing it to be pulled down and flushed away.

Two days ago, Desiree and I removed the old toilet in the master bathroom, and yesterday, we installed a new one. Part of this project involved removing the mirror from the old tank and placing it in the new one.

And, yes, the chimes remain hanging above our front door.

The Mirror from the Old Toilet Tank

The Mirror Placed Inside in the new Toilet

—Mitchell Hegman

Monday, January 20, 2025

Complementary Colors: The Illusion

While working in the garage the other day, I found myself staring at my yellow miter saw for a while as I considered a cut I was about to make. When I turned away, I saw a splotch of blue imposed on my gray truck. The blue was an illusion—another interesting feature of complementary colors.

The “sciencey” explanation goes something like this: when you focus on a color like yellow for an extended period, your eyes’ photoreceptor cells (the cones) become overstimulated. These cones are specialized for detecting different wavelengths of light—red, green, and blue—and work together to help you perceive a full spectrum of colors. Staring at yellow, which is a mix of red and green light, can fatigue the red and green cones in your eyes.

When you finally look away at something neutral, like a white wall, all wavelengths of light are reflected back at your eyes. However, because your red and green cones are still recovering from their "workout," the blue cones, which weren’t as active, take over. This imbalance creates the sensation of seeing blue—the complementary color to yellow.


—Mitchell Hegman

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Pencils

How many pencils does it take to lay down vinyl floor planks on a 70-square-foot bathroom floor?

The answer, if I’m doing the job, is six—and that only got me a third of the way through the project.

Part of the pencil problem stemmed from the fact that my saws for cutting the planks were in my garage, located at the opposite end of the house. After assessing and marking each plank that needed a cut, I had to exit the bathroom, trudge through the bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen, past the laundry room, and out into the garage. Along the way, I sometimes stopped in the kitchen and set down my pencil. Other times, I surrendered the pencil to the chaos of the garage. Either way, by the time I got back to the bathroom, my pencil was a ghost—nowhere to be found.

After six such disappearances, I was forced into a full-blown pencil scavenging hunt, roaming the house and muttering to myself.

You’d think I might find a way to keep pencils on my person, but really, where’s the fun in that?

My Pencil Collection

—Mitchell Hegman

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Observation List #42

  • A plastic storage bin without a cover is the next closest thing to having no storage bin at all.
  • A good round of firewood splits in two when struck with an axe; a great round splits in three.
  • It’s not “normal” to have a “special affinity” for a particular garbage can.
  • Salma Hayek is an observation.
  • After the age of 52, you can’t have too many heavy flannel shirts.
  • Nobody is excited to see the second responders.

—Mitchell Hegman

Friday, January 17, 2025

Complementary Colors

While watching an advertisement on television, I was rather dazzled by the colors—especially the combination of bright yellow and blue clothing worn by the actors. “I see what you did to me there,” I said to the television. “You are throwing complementary colors at me.”

Smart stuff, that.

Way back in the day, I attended a series of art classes at Montana State University. A lot of interesting things came from those classes. I met some lovely people, sketched live (fully unclothed) models, and studied color theory, including the use of complementary colors.

The first thing to recognize is that complementary colors are not necessarily being nice to each other. English being what it is, we are dealing with homophones here. First, we have “compliment” (with an i): a polite expression of praise or admiration. Our “complement” (with an e) refers to something that completes or enhances something else. In our particular case, we are talking about colors from the exact opposite sides of the color wheel. These are pairs of colors which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they offer the strongest contrast between the two colors.

Blue and yellow particularly grab my attention. My attraction to colors like these is one of the reasons I am generally not allowed to pick out my own clothing for important occasions. I’ve posted some complementary color examples below.

Complementary Colors (Source: Wikipedia)

—Mitchell Hegman

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Street Smart

 Sometimes, it’s just as simple as the streetwise addict said: “If you wake up alive, it’s a good thing.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Wed to Gravity, but Holding On

As someone with a metal roof, I can attest that ice and melting snow can do some squirrely stuff. This applies especially to snow melting on a metal roof. If you install cleats on the roof, the snow will melt off while holding in place. Without cleats, the snow will at some point wed with gravity and slide off the roof. This may happen all at once, or it may be a gradual process.

The latter proposition is where the squirrely stuff comes to bear. Under certain weather conditions—for example, the last several days—the snow and ice will slide off the metal but remain overhanging. For the last three days, the snow and ice have been trying, but mostly failing, to shed from my roof. Instead of falling to the ground, the snow has developed some impressive curls.

I’m sharing two photographs I captured yesterday.

Ice Curl at the Back of My House

Ice Curls at the Front of My House

—Mitchell Hegman

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

When the Fire Goes Black

After regularly using my new woodstove, I’ve come to understand all of its quirks and features. One behavior the stove exhibits still unnerves me, even though it signals the stove is operating at peak efficiency. I call this stage of operation “going black.”

At this stage, the fire has been burning for a while and consists of a mix of red-hot coals and partially charred wood. The stove temperature has climbed above 600°F. Once these conditions are met, I push in the damper to direct gases and smoke through the catalytic converter, initiating a secondary burn—often visible as blue flames. Afterward, I reduce the air intake to its minimum setting.

That’s when the stove goes black.

The flames seem to retreat into the partially burned wood, leaving only red embers glowing beneath the chunks of blackened wood. The first few times this happened, I worried I had snuffed out the fire, but that wasn’t the case. The wood continues burning without flames, steadily crumbling into ash. Remarkably, the stove can sustain this state of burning for several hours, producing no visible smoke outside and sometimes reaching temperatures between 700°F and 900°F.

I’ve posted three photographs of my stove after it has gone black.

The Stove Gone Black

Red Coals and The Converter Glowing Red

The Temperature Reading of the Stove in Black Burning Mode 

—Mitchell Hegman

Monday, January 13, 2025

Miter Saw Parts

Yesterday, while cutting pieces of wood trim with my miter saw, the blade caught a small chunk that must have slipped into the space below the plastic kerf plate. The saw emitted a loud WANG and bucked slightly.

Not good.

When I inspected the saw, I immediately noticed considerable damage to the plastic kerf plate. I've had the saw for years, but I was hopeful I could find a new plate somewhere on the vast stretches of the internet. For my first attempt, I popped onto Amazon and input the model number of my saw. A dropdown menu immediately appeared, and “Miter Saw Parts” was one of the items listed. When I clicked on it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my saw's kerf plate was the very first item for sale.

In just a couple of clicks, a new plate was on its way to me. Apparently, busting up your saw's kerf plate is a common occurrence.

As a final note: “kerf” is a pretty cool word, and I’d like to find a poem where I can use it.

Broken Kerf Plate

Search Results

—Mitchell Hegman

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Electrical Work by Phone

Yesterday, I spent a fair bit of time talking a friend through an electrical problem. This is not uncommon, and honestly, I don’t mind helping if I’m able to do so. I have been helping people with wiring over the phone ever since I started in the trades some 47 years ago. The advent of smartphones has made this much easier. Sharing photographs and information from the internet is especially useful.

After I finished (successfully) helping my friend, I got to thinking about the most interesting “phone wiring” project I’ve ever helped with. A friend of mine had called me because a replacement light he’d hung in his kitchen was not working. Partway through our phone conversation, I heard his wife yelling in the background.

“Did she just say you’re on your ladder and naked? Are you naked?”

Without hesitation, my friend answered, “Yeah.”

“Why are you working on this stuff while naked?”

“No particular reason.”

For some reason, an image of him naked but wearing safety glasses rushed to the front of my brain. I quickly tried to trot a puppy dog through my head to clear that image. “Well,” I eventually responded, “we don’t do a lot of naked electrical work. It may not be the best idea.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Saturday, January 11, 2025

Obituaries

With something approaching regularity, I read the local obituaries. I take no pleasure in it. This practice is akin to stepping outside to evaluate an approaching hailstorm—you know you’re going to be impacted, either now or sometime later.

Many years ago, while attending Montana State University, I pushed my way into a creative writing class taught by the internationally known novelist and poet Richard Brautigan. I was not technically qualified for the class, but I pestered the Dean of English so persistently that he and Brautigan eventually gave in and allowed me to attend.

Brautigan insisted on one rather strange exercise as part of the course: he wanted us to read the obituaries in the Billings Gazette. He admired the clear and concise style of the obituaries. And, of course, he was not wrong about that. Obituaries are succinct, deeply touching, and often beautiful in a way no other writing can be.

I see obituaries in a far different light today. I am too near them. I regularly find the summaries of my friends and acquaintances there. And, of course, that storm is ultimately set to envelop me.

—Mitchell Hegman

Friday, January 10, 2025

Extra Screws

In the last few weeks, I have assembled three towel racks and installed three new lights in our bathroom. Interestingly, the towel racks and lights all included extra screws in their hardware packets.

I’m going to push ahead and call that a pretty good idea. After all, it’s pretty much universally better to have more screws than not enough. But it got me wondering: are the manufacturers protecting themselves from mistakes on their end during packing, or do they assume Joe Purchaser (me, in this case) might misplace a screw?

—Mitchell Hegman

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Something Ogden Nash Said

— “The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat.”

—“There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.”

—“Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them.”

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Bad Behavior

One of the aspects I most love about a home remodeling project is that it promotes an acceptable level of bad behavior. This has found particular expression in my work on the makeover of our bathroom. We will soon be replacing the vanity, and I have, to be blunt, been profoundly abusing it.

I have been using the vanity countertop as a workspace for drilling, hammering, and sanding. It’s now my preferred place for staging painting activities. Yesterday, I stomped all over the vanity, casually dripping a little paint as I rolled color onto the upper half of the wall.

This is good stuff, no matter how you cut it.

Standing on the Bathroom Vanity

—Mitchell Hegman

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Blue and White

While our Montana winters can be brutally harsh, they also provide some of the most beautiful vistas imaginable. Yesterday morning, the sun rose over one of those gorgeous landscapes of fresh snow—an entire expanse of earth and sky awash in blue and white, all profoundly soft and quiet.

As the sun ascended, I tiptoed out my door and captured a few photographs.

Morning Light

The Big Belt Mountains

—Mitchell Hegman

Monday, January 6, 2025

Not Necessarily Helpful

The following is a list of things your spouse may not find as helpful as you do:

  • Pointing out pieces they can place while working on a jigsaw puzzle.
  • Using your “rounding up and rounding down” method for tracking your bank account balance.
  • Watching a movie about a night-stalking serial killer immediately before bed.
  • Pouring liquid accelerants on a fire to get it “dancing.”
  • Using every possible opportunity to remind them about the time you won the argument over whether cucumbers are a fruit or a vegetable.
  • Rearranging the cupboards.
  • Using duct tape to repair cooking utensils.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Jackfruit, Part II

It took me years to get beyond the scent of feta cheese and actually try eating the stuff. Feta cheese emits an awful odor—something you might expect from the grease trap in a fast-food eatery. That said, I liked it once I worked beyond the scent. Jackfruit can be similarly off-putting when you first slice into it, belying the sweet flavor of the fruit itself.

The somewhat stringy yellow flesh pods within the fruit are initially what you seek, and they do offer a sweet taste, but the finish is something different—a taste that rather wanders off into the woods a little.

I like it.

The seeds, which are generally larger than table grapes, can also be boiled and eaten. Last night, Desiree and I processed the fifteen-pound jackfruit we recently purchased. After munching on the flesh inside a bit, Desiree boiled the seeds, and we ate a few of them after removing the thin outer shell. The texture of the seeds resides somewhere near the exact center between crunchy and mushy, and they offer a mild taste that is not far removed from that of a boiled potato.

I would eat them again.

Finally, jackfruit is high in fiber and acts as a natural laxative. This might be worth considering before gorging yourself on the stuff.

Sliced Jackfruit

Jackfruit Flesh (With a Seed Inside)

Jackfruit Flesh and Seeds

—Mitchell Hegman

Saturday, January 4, 2025

The Predicament

This conversation between a married couple takes place in the kitchen. The husband has been awake for nearly an hour when his wife joins him. They meet near the coffee maker.

WIFE (after pouring a cup of coffee): “I’m mad at you.”

HUSBAND (with a puzzled expression): “What? Why are you mad? We went to bed in a great place last night.”

WIFE: “You were mean to me in one of my dreams. And you were paying more attention to my sister than me.”

HUSBAND: “But… it wasn’t really me. It was a dream. And you don’t even have a sister.”

WIFE: “I don’t care. I couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time, and I’m not happy with you. You ruined everything.”

The scene closes with the husband lightly whistling as he tries to blow some heat off his coffee before taking a sip.

—Mitchell Hegman

Friday, January 3, 2025

The Lost Winter

While the eastern half of the nation prepares to be slapped sideways by a massive blast of frigid Arctic air, I have been gazing down at Hauser Lake in wonder.

Why wonder?

I am shocked to see patches of unfrozen water on the lake. I have never seen open water in the first week of January. Usually, the lake is locked under a sheet of ice long before I am lingering under the Christmas mistletoe, hoping Desiree will grant me a kiss. So far this winter, we have only occasionally seen temperatures cold enough to freeze the lake, and my snow shovel is standing in the corner of my garage, collecting dust.

Sure, you could argue I don’t need the chill of winter or its blanket of snow, but they’re essential to our northern rhythm, to the balance of seasons, and to the moisture we depend on. Simply put, we need snow, and we need the cold.

Open Water on Hauser

—Mitchell Hegman

Thursday, January 2, 2025

New Weight-Loss Program

Desiree stepped into the bathroom just as I finished shaving my face. “Jeez,” I told her, “I weighed myself before shaving. It’s not good—my weight has crept up a couple of pounds.”

“It’s the holidays,” she suggested.

“Maybe… but I need to ratchet my weight back down a little. I think I’ll start shaving off my whiskers before I get on the scale and see if that helps.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Jackfruit

Native to the tropical regions of South and Southeast Asia, the jackfruit holds the title of the largest tree-borne fruit on Earth. These green, spiky behemoths can weigh anywhere from 10 to 50 pounds, with some exceptional specimens tipping the scales at over 100 pounds.

Beyond its impressive size, jackfruit boasts a unique flavor profile. The ripe fruit has a sweet, tropical taste reminiscent of a blend of mango, banana, and pineapple. In contrast, the unripe flesh is starchy and mild, making it a popular plant-based substitute for pulled pork or chicken in savory dishes. Even the giant seeds are edible; they can be boiled and eaten, with a flavor and texture similar to potatoes.

Yesterday, Desiree and I spotted—and then purchased—a fifteen-pound jackfruit while grocery shopping. It’s a monster compared to apples and oranges, but I’m not going to let that intimidate me. “We can cut it open next year,” I suggested.

As it happens, today is next year, but Desiree wants to wait a bit. More on that later.

Happy New Year!

Our Jackfruit

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—Mitchell Hegman