A Home for Someone Special

One of the property owners adjoining me decided he would plant a fence along the property line demarcating our parcels. After pounding in a few far-flung treated-wood corner posts, the fencing process languished and then stopped entirely.

Speaking to my neighbor later, he told me he’d opted out of that fence location. Shortly after our conversation, a fence appeared along his access road south of the posts he’d previously planted.

One of these rather lonely posts can be seen from my bay windows and has been greeting my southward gazes for about two years. It recently occurred to me that the post might make a good home for another neighbor: the bluebirds.

I’ve decided to affix a bluebird box to that post, and two others in different locations.

Bluebird boxes on fence posts make excellent sense because fence lines already function like avian boulevards. Mountain Bluebirds, in particular, spend much of their day perched low, scanning open ground for insects with the concentration of snipers. A fence post gives them both a lookout tower and a ready-made nesting site in one neat package.

Here in Montana, bluebirds favor our swaths of open country: pastures, hay fields, ranch land, and any grassy edge where they can swoop down after beetles and grasshoppers. A nest box mounted on a fence post in the open prairie places the home exactly where they already make their living.

It would be a shame to let a good post go to waste.

The Home Post

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Josh Billings Said

Josh Billings was the pen name of 19th-century American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw (April 21, 1818 to October 14, 1885). As a writer, Billings specialized in sideways wisdom that landed as straight as polished philosophy. Affecting a deliberately folksy style, he mixed frontier plainness with sly observation, turning everyday human weaknesses into barn-door proverbs. Billings had a talent for shrinking grand truths into inescapable homespun one-liners.

Following are three Billings quotes:

— “Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.”

— “Every man has his follies, and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.”

— “Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won’t buy the wag of his tail.”

Photo: Wikipedia 

—Mitchell Hegman

Next Level Rock Collecting

I’ve taken my rock collecting to the next level.

After shopping at a local box store, a sparkly rock among the washed stones in a parking lot island beneath a streetlight caught my eye. Next thing you know, I’m full-on mining for precious goodies right there in the parking lot without a permit.

I mean, I filled my hands with glittery specimens.

The rocks appear to be infused with mica. If tipped at certain angles against the light, these stones positively flash.

Thing is, good rocks are where you find them.

Glittery Parking Lot Rock

—Mitchell Hegman

Deer Proof

Over the years, I have tried every deer-proofing trick known from here to the coldest corner of Mars: smelly oils, soap, hanging widgets that make noise or motion. Eventually, I gave up and promoted only plants they found unpalatable.

That’s a short list, by the way.

In my yard, the following plants proved unpalatable to deer: Russian sage, mint, Dame’s rocket, coneflowers (Mexican hats), salvia, and blue flax.

Well, the list I just shared is entirely too short to comply with the prodigious plant sensibilities of an island girl from the Philippines. And you might be surprised by how impressive some of our high-north Rocky Mountain entrants compare in the competitive world of flowering plants.

Desiree wanted more. A purple this. A yellow that. A lovely-scented whatchacallit.

You know, deer stuff.

The only sure way to keep deer from dining on your (Desiree’s) pretty flowers or trees is with a tall fence. Yesterday, Desiree and I completed fencing in a small section of yard so she can chase her floral dreams within.

Me Captured Inside the Fence

—Mitchell Hegman

Drunk Deer

Somewhere in France, there exists a woodland happy hour. French police recently warned drivers to watch for drunken deer wandering into roadways after eating fermented fruit and decaying plants. Police described the animals as displaying “totally unpredictable behavior,” which is apparently the upscale French equivalent of saying, “The deer are absolutely hammered.”

A video accompanying the warning (which I have shared here) shows one deer twirling and frolicking like it had just rediscovered disco music. Authorities cautioned motorists to watch for erratic crossings, strange trajectories, and disorderly escape attempts.

I can’t entirely fault the deer. Winters are long, and living is hard in the wild. If I were living in the woods and discovered that rotten apples could briefly transform existence into a warm, spinning lantern festival, I too might give them a whirl.

Of course, here in Montana, our mule deer can handle their liquor. They are not apt to spin themselves into oblivion. They are more likely to get surly and show you the business end of their antlers.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fofBnwT3p1A

My Box of Favorite Things

At the age of nine, I had an oak box in which I kept my favorite things. I would sit cross-legged before the box and pull out my treasures to admire them: an antique purple bottle, a cut geode, my collection of knapped arrowheads, a parchment replica of the Declaration of Independence, square nails, a Chinese coin with a square hole in it, a brass bell, a big goose feather, and a silver dollar.

After appropriately admiring each item, I would carefully replace them and stow the box until I felt the need to see everything again.

Today, my favorite things are no longer confined to a box, and they are these: an antique purple bottle, the photograph of my wife on my smartphone home screen, the Elkhorn Mountains as seen from my bay window, my entire rock collection, and time spent at our cabin.

I see these things with my eyes open or closed.

Purple Bottle

—Mitchell Hegman

The Laws of Shopping

• There is no such thing as too much parmesan cheese.
• If you walk down the potato chip aisle, you will be compelled to buy a bag of chips.
• Remembering to purchase the salad dressing will force an error elsewhere on the list.
• Whatever you bought last week is on sale this week.
• Some of the produce bags are purposely sealed shut on both ends.
• The shortest checkout line generally harbors someone with an item requiring a price check.
• The one item you entered the store specifically to buy will be the one item you forget.
• The cart with the squeaky wheel will always choose you.

—Mitchell Hegman

Hands On

I watched an Amish man, by way of explaining his skill at carpentry, say, “We Amish are hands-on from an early age.”

For whatever reason, when I heard the phrase “hands-on,” my brain instantly leapt to Jeffrey Epstein.

That’s how deeply one wicked man can saturate our everyday lives.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Bleak Cup

Soak the hoya, trim the lemon, and pull the shades down to spare the tender goldfish plant. There will be no celebrating, for we’ve lost the mystery plant.

Five days ago, I shared the story of the mystery plant start I found in a bucket of soil in a dark corner of my garage. Hoping I might nurse it along in a friendly cup of soil, at least long enough to see if it was friend or foe, I prepped a cup and planted the start inside.

Sadly, the plant withered and perished, leaving behind a bleak cup of nothing but moist dirt.

So lightly water the orchids. Place the lime in direct light. Give the cat palm an extra sip tonight.

The Mystery Plant

The Bleak Cup

—Mitchell Hegman

The Tin Cat

If someone or something is just trying to make a living and they are not directly doing harm to me in doing so, I extend them latitude. This includes mice.

I recently discovered that mice have taken to making something of a rodent condo in the warm, enclosed spaces of my outdoor hot tub. Obviously, I don’t want them there. They are messy, disease vectors, and they poop everywhere they go. But, at the same time, they are simply trying to make a living, and there is no direct harm to me.

My measure of giving them latitude is live-trapping them and then driving them down the road to release them. To that end, I purchased a new live trap called a Tin Cat. It is designed to capture more than one mouse once set. The very first time I used it, I was astonished at how well it worked.

I caught three.

I also like that the trap is fully enclosed. After each use, I can hose the inside clean without exposing myself to the mess the mice have left behind after release.

Good stuff, that.

I’m posting a photograph of the Tin Cat (open) next to a requisite Cold Smoke beer.

—Mitchell Hegman

That Other Thing

I have been without access to my sticky notes for three days now. I had no idea how difficult it would be.

—Mitchell Hegman

Wildlife Just Outside the Window

Desiree and I are staying in Three Forks while I am teaching classes in Bozeman. Our room is rather close to the edge of civilization. I am posting a photograph of the wildlife just outside our window. Several of these critters are eating the heads off the dandelions in the grass.

A Gopher Eating Dandelions

—Mitchell Hegman

Remembrance

We must remember that mountains sometimes tumble into the seas, sometimes horses pull too hard on the grass, and sometimes a person you dearly love fades away and perishes.

I was angry when Uyen passed, for there existed no beauty in it. Cancer had ravaged her from end to end, edge to center. The ability to walk gradually drained from her, then the ability to rise from bed. In the end, she could not raise an arm.

If only Thomas was right, that we might rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Instead came silence. Late snow had melted back into the raw earth, and the last honey bees finished their work on the flowering apple trees.

Ah, my sweet girl, I am not angry anymore. The bees and melting snows insist that life persists. We shall abide the rising of the light.

Today we remember Uyen Hegman, lost on this day in May of 2011.

Uyen talking with Dzao Women in Ta Phin Village, Vietnam, April 2009

Uyen and Helen December 1984

—Mitchell Hegman

The Mystery Plant

 Life will always try.

Yesterday, I opened a completely closed bucket of topsoil I had set aside in my garage a few weeks ago and discovered that a seed of some sort had germinated and started to grow inside.

The soil is from a local nursery and is of uncertain origin. The plant start potentially looks like it might be a Russian thistle, but it could also be some sort of evergreen. After indelicately unearthing the poor thing, I actually felt a little guilty.

The plant was trying its best. The least I could do was give it a chance. With that, I gathered up the skinny little thing, poked it into some soil in a cup, and gave it a dash of water. Hopefully, I can successfully save and nurture the plant so I might one day identify it and share a photograph of it alongside a Cold Smoke beer.

The Mystery Plant

Planted in a Cup

The Bucket

—Mitchell Hegman

Recycling Glass

The adult in me never survives a trip to recycle at our local trash transfer station. I’m fine (read properly adulting) while stuffing cardboard in the bins. And dropping off my aluminum and steel cans is just another humdrum activity that tips me in no particular direction.

And then there is the glass: recycling bottles and jars.

To recycle glass, you “deposit” your bottles and jars in a huge metal container. This is where the ten-year-old me pushes the mature me off the proverbial cliff and takes over.

Deposit is NOT the word I would use for what I do.

I’m a ten and intend to go full-on Viking raid with this mission. My goals are twofold. First, I need to make a big, noisy production out of throwing away my bottles. Secondly, the object is to break as much glass as possible as I fire my stuff into the receptacle.

Had this recycling system been in place when I was a kid, I would have thrived and become a full-on recycle warrior. As I told a woman carrying a tub of bottles toward the glass container as I left empty-handed yesterday, “Glass is the fun part of recycling.”

Glass Recycling Container 

—Mitchell Hegman

Observation #366

We need to remember that we are all merely human. Except for Keith Richards. I’m not sure exactly what he is.

Photo: WSJ 

—Mitchell Hegman

Lemon Tree Update, May 7, 2026

I’ve not posted a lemon tree update for quite a spell. Frankly, I’m mad at the lemon tree. It has yet to bloom or produce a lemon. Apparently, its main purpose is to function as a host for spider mites.

It’s very good at that.

A month ago, we pruned the lemon tree back as part of an effort to combat the latest mite infestation. The tree did pop back to life and is now growing rather explosively, but it remains without even the hint of a blossom.

Our calamansi lime tree, on the other hand, is a showboat of blossoms and fruit production. We’ve been plucking limes from it for months, and now it’s blooming wholesale. Though calamansi are the toy version of limes, only growing to the size of grapes, they are packed with flavor and are a must when preparing authentic Filipino cuisine.

I’m happy to have at least one cooperative tree.

I am posting a photograph of the lemon tree, with a Cold Smoke beer as a reference for size, and the calamansi lime tree with the same beer. I am also sharing a photograph of lime blossoms, which are milky and sweet.

The Lemon Tree (With a Cold Smoke)

The Calamansi Lime (With a Cold Smoke)

Calamansi Blossoms

—Mitchell Hegman

Springtime in Montana

Spring does not tell Montana what to do with the weather. The trees may be in bloom and the tulips standing tall, but if Montana feels like dropping twenty-some-degree temperatures on May 6 and frosting everything in sight, that is exactly what it will do.

So we answer in kind, tucking in our flowers for the night and turning up the heat inside.

—Mitchell Hegman

Fencing Logic

There are plenty of decisions to make when building a fence. You have to decide where it will run, what materials to use, where to place gates, and how tall it needs to be. A short fence works fine if you are keeping a toy poodle in, but if you are trying to keep deer out of a yard or garden, you need something much taller.

Desiree and I are building a tall chain-link fence to keep deer out of a section of our yard. One final detail remained: how far off the ground to hold the bottom of the fence. That one was easy. About two inches. It gives my weed-eater string room to work and leaves a quick escape route for any snake I might run into near the fence. Where I live, this is a serious consideration.

Posts for our New Fence

—Mitchell Hegman

100 Years Ago

There is every possibility that, 100 years ago, your grandparents were partying and closing down the bars on Saturday nights. Well, if not your grandparents, mine.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Few Lesser-Known Facts

• Longhorn cattle are not born that way.
• Parallel parking was invented by someone with an unstable mind.
• People who like painting houses are the marrying kind.
• The truth doesn’t wear underwear.
• The world could last only 15 days without bacon.
• Every extension cord believes, deep down, that it is permanent.
• You can’t outrun a craving for potato chips.

—Mitchell Hegman

Pick-up Sticks

Between pine beetle infestations and raucous windstorms, many of the surrounding forests are filled with fallen trees. This includes the Forest Service property adjoining the parcel for my cabin. That particular forest is comprised primarily of lodgepole pine.

Nature has not been kind.

The forest looks more like a giant pile of pick-up sticks. The lodgepoles have crashed down crosswise against each other, stacking high and making it nearly impossible to walk through. For the last few years, I have been sawing much of my firewood from this patch of timber. I have carved a clear swath through the mess and gradually worked my way up a fairly gentle slope. But the rounds are dry and easy to manage.

Honestly, I enjoy my time cutting into the downfall. I’ve always enjoyed anything that presses me harder against my mountains. I’m sharing a photograph of the forest and my truck filled with rounds.

My Truck Filled with Rounds

The Pick-up Sticks Forest

—Mitchell Hegman

Swarming Bees

Yesterday at midday, when I stopped to check my mail, I discovered honey bees swarming on the cluster of mailboxes. Bees are generally not looking for trouble and are not aggressive when swarming, so I was able to open my box and retrieve my mail.

Swarming is how a colony reproduces, a process in which the entire society splits in two.

The triggers for swarming typically appear in the spring when the hive becomes crowded and nectar is flowing. The workers feel congestion, rising heat, and an recognize an abundance of resources. A sense that they are strong enough to divide washes through the hive.

To prepare for a new colony, the worker bees begin raising new queens by feeding select larvae an all-royal jelly diet. At the same time, they slim down the current queen by feeding her less, making her light enough to fly. Normally, she’s a regal homebody, not a traveler.

On a warm day, often in the late morning, the hive reaches a tipping point, and the old queen leaves the hive, taking 30 to 70 percent of the workers with her. They pour out in a thick cloud, then gather again nearby, usually forming a hanging cluster.

Scout bees then head out to find a new home, sometimes miles away. They return and “dance” to argue their case, and through this democratic process, the swarm eventually lifts off and relocates, with the old queen once again laying eggs and producing a thriving colony.

Back at the old hive, a new queen rises to resume normal activity there.

When I drove past the mailbox array in the late evening, the gathering of bees was gone.

Bees Swarming the Mailbox Array

A Gathering

—Mitchell Hegman

A Cascade of Flowers

The Southeast Valley Honeybees, after several years of absence, have laid claim to our Mayday tree, now in full bloom. The entire tree hums and vibrates with the sound of dozens upon dozens of bees.

Nothing in my northland world outdoes a Mayday tree in the production of pearly white flowers. It doesn’t scatter its blossoms like loose change; it gathers them into long, crowded tassels, turning each branch into a chandelier, if not a floral waterfall, of small blooms. Mayday trees also bloom early and produce a sweet, beckoning scent, boosting the odds of pollination before other trees and ground flowers even get off the starting line to compete.

Yesterday, at midday, I wandered out and stood beneath the Mayday, a halo of blossoms and bees above me.

If not heaven, close.

Desiree and the Mayday Tree in Bloom

A Bee at Work

—Mitchell Hegman

The Holding Pen

Almost every plant-eating critter loves to munch on quaking aspen. The tender leaves and emerging buds are especially tasty. And in the snow-swirled depths of winter, when forage is scarce, these four-legged customers will strip bark for a meal. Additionally, aspen make excellent antler-rubbing posts. If you intend to plant a sapling in deer, elk, or moose country, you need to provide fencing around it.

Yesterday, Desiree and I purchased two super tall, skinny quaking aspen saplings. One will eventually find a home near our cabin; the other will be planted near our hot tub just outside our back door. Read “deer country” here.

To protect the saplings before planting, we placed them in a protective holding pen. During the summer, the pen serves as a fenced-in garden spot. I should note that I have a sketchy record with aspen trees. Throughout their range, aspen are attractive targets for pathogens and insects. Two aspens I previously planted at the cabin succumbed to blight.

Still, aspen have a hushed stubbornness about them. They send up new shoots, try again, and then try once more. With a bit of luck and a little protection, perhaps these two will grasp the earth where I plant them and decide to stay.

Desiree Pushing the Trees Toward Our Truck.

Aspen in the Holding Pen

—Mitchell Hegman

Our Requirements for Survival

Desiree and I watched a couple of episodes of Naked and Afraid. In one, the male survivalist tapped out after only three days of the 21-day challenge, leaving a young woman on her own. Thankfully, she thrived and made it to extraction day.

Desiree and I discussed what it would take for us to make it past three days. For me, survival would hinge on two non-negotiables: footwear and coffee. I would need to fashion a respectable pair of shoes out of bark or hide, and then, somehow, locate a coffee bush in whatever uncooperative corner of the planet I’d been dropped into.

Desiree’s requirements are, if anything, more exacting. She would need to successfully forage and assemble all the necessary ingredients to prepare a proper dish of pancit noodles.

We have our needs.

—Mitchell Hegman

Roughing It

My late wife and I purchased our mountain property in 2000. Over the next few years, we worked out plans and finances for a cabin, and began building in phases.

The key word here is “cabin.” I had in mind something small and simple. Maybe even rustic. I briefly considered an A-frame, then let that idea wander off into the trees.

“Simple” never made it onto the final prints. Before long, we had something that looks suspiciously like a second home. Just last year, Desiree and I finished the loft. Yesterday, we wired up a big-screen TV to fiber internet, better than what I get at home, and spent the afternoon in the loft watching music videos on YouTube.

So this, apparently, is our version of roughing it.

I’m posting a photograph of Desiree from our time in the loft.

Desiree “Roughing It”

—Mitchell Hegman

My Place in the World

When I was a kid, my mother had to drag me, squirming and sniveling, to the bath or shower. In my reckoning, it was a waste of time. Besides, I earned every speck of dirt I wore.

Welp, over the years, there’s been a radical reversal. I now find showering downright pleasurable, especially at the cabin. I love showering there. It’s a mountain luxury, and for some reason, the water feels warmer. After a day of cutting firewood, poking along the chill creek, or tending a campfire, it lands like a soft massage. And considering we went the first fifteen years of our long cabin-building process without a shower or hot water, I don’t take it for granted.

Frankly, I hate getting out of the cabin’s shower once I start. Yesterday, I stepped in after a late afternoon of sawing Douglas fir rounds.

Pure heaven.

After a while, I called out, “Hey, Desi, grab my phone and come here, please.” When she arrived, I asked her to take a G-rated picture of me in the shower. “This is my place in the world,” I said.

Today, it’s my pleasure to share it with you.

Me in the Cabin Shower

—Mitchell Hegman

About Her Name

Shirly never liked her name, and she always wondered why a decent person would call a tree a western larch when you could call it tamarack instead.

As far as her name went, she wished to be a Belinda. Maybe a Blossom. Why not Enola? A name that opened like a window and let a little light in.

Shirly heard music words in names. And yet she fell for a man simply named Bob. Not much more than a single note, Bob, but sometimes a single note is all a melody needs to begin. He agreed to call her Enola, and she liked the way he said it: Ee-no-LA. A big, bold LA to end with a flourish. A symphony could hardly do better. Easily enough to build a love upon.

—Mitchell Hegman

Thanks, Dad — Thanks, Sun

Among other things, I inherited a bad scalp from my father. As an adult, he was allergic to sunlight and lived accordingly, keeping to the shade and rarely stepping outside without a hat.

While I’m not directly allergic to the sun, my skin is damaged (and now revolting) due to too much exposure as a creek-swimming, field-wandering kid who never wore a hat.

Presently, I am battling psoriasis, folliculitis, and actinic keratoses (pre-cancer). A couple of years ago, I had a spot of squamous cell carcinoma (yes, actual cancer) sliced from my forearm. Strangely, I didn’t feel a thing, during or after, which is notable because I am, by reputation and repeated demonstration, a bit of a baby about such matters.

So, as it stands, it appears I’m one malady away from using every letter of the alphabet. Not that there is any value in that.

—Mitchell Hegman

Observations After Turning Seventy

Observations After Turning Seventy:

• I’m headed in one direction; my memory has taken a side road.
• I had no idea how young forty was until I struck seventy.
• A single project in the yard can leave a trail of connected bruises on me.
• There is no substitute for lifelong friends.
• Spending my retirement stash is way easier than saving it.
• I will never outgrow rocks.
• It’s okay to tell your man-friend you love him; some things are better said out loud.
• Being loud is not a substitute for being correct.
• I now understand why naps were invented, and why they should be defended.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Thought Experiment

Maybe we would do better if we imagined love as limping. Love is a little beat up. Something or somebody is always trying to knock it back or shove it slightly off kilter.

Love is ever a work in progress. Supporting structures come and go. Some are temporary. And while love can be fearless, it can also be overly sensitive and frail, and sometimes unrecognizable.

As a thought experiment, imagine how often you’ve passed by love without knowing.

—Mitchell Hegman

Creekside

There is a certain luxury in having a creek within a stone’s throw of where you are.

First, you should hear creek as “crik,” as I learned to pronounce it in my beer-drinking hometown of East Helena, Montana.

Second, I am presently at my cabin, which places me well within the aforementioned range of proximity to a creek.

Creeks are ever in motion and always busy with the task of seeking downhill. The creek near my cabin is running high at present. The water is over-eager and slap-happy as it reaches through tangles of willow, or dashes across the steeplechase of stone, logs, and earth laid before it.

You can hear the chattering of the creek from a great distance.

Desiree and I walked along a length of the creek yesterday afternoon. The meadow grass is only beginning to thread up through last year’s thatch of dun grass, now laid flat after a winter under snow. The pussy willows are fuzzy with blossoms, providing a place for early bees and butterflies to dine and dance together.

A walk along our section of creek is really a tale of dams. One made of stone, carefully stacked by Desiree; several others made of sticks and mud by beavers. No matter the maker, the water shimmers and blanches, clearing dams. The waters in the pools above are deep and swirled with mystery.

Trout live there.

A creek with trout is a complete thing.

Holy.

Desiree’s Dam

A Beaver Dam

—Mitchell Hegman

Splitting a Geode

If you are any kind of rockhound, you cannot miss a “rock show.” Yesterday, to maintain our rockhound status, Desiree, my sister Deb, and I took time to check out the annual Helena Mineral Society Gem and Mineral Show.

Among all the vendors of fossils, gems, cut stones, and unique mineral specimens, we found a guy selling loads of geodes. Geodes are nature’s little treasure chests—plain on the outside, wholly extravagant within. When you split one open, it feels like the earth hid a galaxy in a rock, then chucked it off to the side.

Making the geode experience far more interesting was the fact that you picked your own whole stone and then cracked it open yourself using a chain that applied great pressure when you turned a ship’s helm wheel, all of which was mounted on an old wooden barrel.

The geodes were formed first as a bubble of gas trapped in cooling lava, leaving a hollow behind as the volcano released its heat. Then, over long stretches of time, mineral-rich water seeped into that cavity, and through crystallization, layers of quartz slowly formed along the inner walls.

After watching a couple of other people crack open geodes, Desiree purchased one and took a turn at the wheel. As the vendor held the stone in position, she cranked down the pressure until the geode popped into two.

Ta-da! Each half bloomed with a dazzling array of crystals.

The Rock Show Floor as Seen from the Mezzanine

Desiree Splitting a Geode

Inside the Geode

—Mitchell Hegman