A Snake Skeleton

While walking along our country road, I spotted something off-color in the nearby sagebrush and bunchgrass that drew my attention. As is perpetually my habit, I drifted over for a closer inspection.

Well, you don’t see that every day.

At the base of a sandy anthill, I found the skeleton of a snake, likely a bullsnake, its countless vertebrae and ribs laid out like cursive writing that had been hacked to pieces.

A macabre end for a life that most other critters, many humans included, don’t appreciate. Snakes live a tough life. For one thing, fear of snakes is nearly universal. Also, consider how they are forever wed to gravity, with neither wings nor legs to free them for even an instant. And here in Montana, they must hide away for half the year in hibernation.

I could not even begin to guess what events delivered the snake to this end.

I suppose my neighbor Kevin and I are odd in preferring to have bullsnakes around. They do a lot to keep the mouse population in check. Just the other day, he called me to tell me he'd spotted a five-footer at the lakeshore. "We'll need to tell everyone they may see it and they need to leave it alone," I cautioned.

In our way of thinking, a dead bullsnake is of no value.

Snake Skeleton

—Mitchell Hegman

The Mighty Mo

The Missouri River is both beautiful and restless.

Most rivers in North America have their directions firmly sorted out. They head south, east, or west with little hesitation. The Missouri, however, begins in the Rocky Mountains at Three Forks, Montana, promptly turns north for a considerable distance, then thinks better of it, swings east across the Great Plains, and finally hooks south to join the Mississippi River on its long journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

The "Mighty Mo," as we sometimes call it, is the longest river in the United States, stretching about 2,341 miles. The river officially begins where the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin Rivers converge. A drop of water beginning its journey at Three Forks will travel nearly 3,700 miles before it reaches saltwater.

My life has been spent traipsing along the handsome upper reaches of the river, from the headwaters to Great Falls. Yesterday, Desiree and I drove the frontage road along the stretch of river between Ulm and Wolf Creek. It turns out this is her favorite drive in all of Montana. She loves the winding waterway, the mountains marching alongside, the bridges, the towering riverside cliffs drinking from the eddied water, the lavish homes perched on ledges above, and the swirls of birds filling the skies.

We stopped at several places to fill our smartphone cameras with images.

The Open River and Mountains Beyond

Fishermen Amid the Cliffs

—Mitchell Hegman

The Ant Thing

I have no quarrel with ants. They don't eat my apples, tunnel through Desiree's flower garden, or leave bear-sized footprints around the cabin. They simply go about their business with a seriousness that would make a tax auditor proud.

I've occasionally watched one struggling across the driveway with something impossibly large balanced over its head. A pine needle. Half a grasshopper. A crumb of unknown origin. The little brute seems entirely unconcerned that its burden outweighs it many times over.

Consider.

If an ant were the size of a human, it could lift a pickup truck. It could carry a small car on its back or drag a loaded moving van. It could bite through wood, climb the side of a skyscraper without hesitation, and, if its speed scaled with its stride, race down the interstate at well over 100 miles per hour. An ant, in a single leap, could clear an entire football field. It could tumble from a towering height, stand up, dust itself off, and continue on its way.

We should probably count ourselves lucky that ants never scaled up to such a size. There would be no live-trapping them and hauling them out to the woods. At that point, I'd probably just move.

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Horace Said

Horace (65 to 8 BC) wrote as Rome shed its republic and became an empire under Augustus.

Amid political upheaval, he found wisdom in moderation, friendship, and the passing day.

His compact observations have echoed across two thousand years of human experience.

Following are three of his quotes:

—   “It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.”

—   “Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow.”

—   “One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.”

—Mitchell Hegman

In the Bag

We must save the apples.

"We" in this instance is 95% Desiree and 5% me. The issue is worms attacking our apples. I am not in favor of spraying insecticides and would actually allow the worms to have their way with a few apples. As an alley kid from East Helena, Montana, I've never been opposed to working my way around the worm in an apple.

The classic wormy apple, by the way, owes its reputation to the codling moth. After hatching, its cream-colored caterpillar bores into the apple like a miniature miner, heading straight for the seed-filled core. If you've found a worm in a Montana apple, you've almost certainly met one. Given this, the damage is usually confined to the core.

But my island girl prefers purity in her apples. Our particular variety is the Golden Delicious. They are sweet late in the season, but I prefer them in the last stages of green, with a dash of salt. I converted Desiree to this preference last year with our first harvest.

To save this year's apples, she procured some net bags that can be secured around individual fruits. Although she may be a little late pulling the trigger, she started bagging the apples yesterday.

I must admit, there is a certain weird charm to the bagged tree. It's something akin to decorating a tree for Christmas. The effort makes it feel a little special. I am posting two photographs so you can get a feel for it.

Desiree Tying Bags Around the Apples

Apples in Bags

—Mitchell Hegman

The Sapphire Thing

Montana is America's sapphire state, home to the nation's only major deposits of gem-quality sapphires. Most are found in four classic localities: Yogo Gulch, Rock Creek, Dry Cottonwood Creek, and the Missouri River gravels northeast of Helena. The Missouri River deposits quite literally extend through the property on which I constructed my house. Given my feral obsession with rocks and my proximity to precious gems, I am regularly compelled to purchase bags of sapphire pay gravel from one or another of the nearby mining operations so I can glean a few stones.

Just yesterday, we poked through a bag of gravel processed from the Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine.

Good stuff.

We found several larger sapphires I like to think of as "tink-tinks" because of the distinctive sound they make when dropped into a holding bottle. Most of the gems ranged from green to blue. The largest, though not of perfect quality, I would estimate to be around 4 carats. I'm sharing a photograph of the gems we found.

Looking for Sapphires

Our Precious Finds

—Mitchell Hegman

Return of the Voles

The voles have invaded Desiree's flower garden again.

Though they are often mistaken for mice, they live very different lives. While mice are quick to invade and take advantage of the luxuries of our homes, voles are creatures of meadows, fields, and forest edges. They spend most of their time hidden beneath dense grasses, scuttling through narrow runways they weave through the vegetation and retreating to shallow burrows where they nest and store food. Their diet consists mainly of grasses, roots, seeds, bulbs, and the bark of young trees, which can make them unwelcome visitors in gardens and orchards. Although a vole may occasionally wander into a garage or shed by accident, they rarely take up residence inside houses.

If you spot a small rodent scampering across your kitchen floor, it's almost certainly a mouse rather than a vole. A vole is easy to recognize by its compact body, blunt nose, tiny ears that nearly disappear into its fur, and its short tail, which is only about a third the length of its body.

Yesterday, I live-trapped two voles from the garden and carted them down the road for release in the place we nicknamed Voleville in honor of previous releases there. I'm sharing two photographs of one of the captured voles. The second includes a Cold Smoke beer for an accurate reference of its size.

A Trapped Vole

Vole Next to a Cold Smoke Beer

—Mitchell Hegman

Monkey Flowers

The upper reaches of Arrastra Creek remain untamed and fully electrified. The water surges down the mountain in a fully white state, bounding from stone to stone, convulsing, and grasping at fallen timber. The clattering sound is bigger than all the other sounds in the forest. The sharpest birdsong cannot penetrate the din.

And amid all of this, in pockets and fists of green nurtured by mist, grow rare beauties: Solomon's seal, queen's cup, and monkey flowers.

Monkey flowers have a fondness for soggy ground. They are little botanical signposts, often revealing hidden springs and seeps long before the water reveals itself. They love having their feet wet. Over the years, I have found them in both yellow and red. Yesterday, along the fringes and braids of Arrastra Creek, I found a pair of red monkey flowers in bloom.

Arrastra Creek

Monkey Flowers

—Mitchell Hegman

Butt-Wipes

It's unlikely that rap music will ever overtake the sound of waves shuffling across a Montana mountain lake. Improbable that two words could topple you with laughter. Implausible that only my kiss could stop you from drowning in mirth.

But then a chrome-and-glitter wakeboard boat emerged, with too-loud music thumping.

"Butt-wipes," I said of them.

I swear, honey, you would have died laughing had I not enfolded you.

—Mitchell Hegman

23 Years

23 years ago on these early July dates, with the help of friends, I started setting foam panels in a freshly excavated hole for the foundation of my cabin. I recall the scent of freshly turned earth and pine as we worked. And I recall the excitement that filled me from my toes to my fingertips as we engaged in those early stages of construction.

Back then, I anticipated a timeframe of perhaps a dozen years from that point to fully frame and finish the cabin, inside and out. Well, life happens, and life doesn't happen. Losing Uyen in 2011 brought me to a complete stop for about five years.

I lost my heart for the cabin for a spell.

Since 2022, Desiree and I have been pouring our efforts into finishing the cabin. Just yesterday, I installed the last kitchen countertop receptacles and dropped in the kitchen sink. All that remains to completely finish the cabin's main floor are two small pieces of trim and the installation of the range hood. Today's post includes a few photographs documenting the process.

Me Studying the Foam Panels, July 11, 2003

Me on the Formed Walls, July 19, 2003

The Kitchen Counter, July 12, 2026

Sink in Place, July 12, 2026

—Mitchell Hegman

Limits

I have my limits. I can, for example, drink only 3 beers. A fourth one will give me a headache. I can only listen to about 30 seconds of opera singing before I get really uncomfortable and start squirming. When it comes to outside temperatures, my maximum is around 80°F. Anything beyond that causes me to flush red and sweat profusely if I try to do any physical activity. Yesterday, while driving out of the valley to reach the cool mountain air at the cabin, my car registered 103°F at one point. I'm pretty sure that's near my melting point.

Outside Temperature Registered on My Car

—Mitchell Hegman

Yarrow

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is one of those unassuming wildflowers with an outsized reputation. Its scientific name comes from the Greek hero Achilles, who, according to legend, used the plant to treat the wounds of his soldiers. For centuries, yarrow was valued as a medicinal herb to help stop bleeding. Today, it is better known as a hardy plant that thrives in poor soils, tolerates drought, and attracts sexy pollinators, including bees and butterflies.

Yarrow (the white-flowered variety) is native to Montana and is widely distributed, tending to thrive in open spaces. Its flat clusters of white flowers sit above finely divided, fern-like leaves that release a vital herbal scent when crushed. It spreads by seed and shallow underground rhizomes, allowing it to gradually form expanding colonies where conditions suit it. Tough, attractive, and remarkably resilient, yarrow is a plant that needs barely a foothold to establish itself.

A word of caution: Given its exceptionally tough, opportunistic nature, yarrow will create a mat of roots and take over a flower garden if given the opportunity.

Yarrow Clusters Under My Mayday Tree

Yarrow Structure

—Mitchell Hegman

Habakkuk’s Penny

While handling a Bible someone gifted Desiree, I noticed a rather conspicuous gap between the pages in one spot. Upon opening the Bible there, I found a shiny new penny.

Strange.

Why there? A random act? Sheer chance? Or might some design be in effect?

The coin marked the beginning of Habakkuk, a minor prophet. I was unfamiliar with the book and had to do some studying.

Habakkuk is a remarkably honest little book. The prophet looks at a world drowning in violence, corruption, and injustice and asks God the question believers have been asking for thousands of years: "Why don't You do something?" God's answer is unsettling. Habakkuk learns that faith is not built on having firm answers. Sometimes it must carry true believers through hard answers and anguish. By the end of the book, nothing around Habakkuk has changed. Trouble is still coming. Yet his outlook has been transformed. He chooses to rejoice in God, even if the crops fail, the livestock disappear, and every earthly reason for optimism evaporates.

This is not far removed from the story of Job, but it is more distressing in one respect. Habakkuk receives no earthly restoration like the rewards bestowed upon Job for his faith through strife. Instead, he is left to trust God without seeing the outcome he might have hoped for.

I am afraid I would require a firm answer about the need for suffering and, thus, Habakkuk's penny is lost on me.

Habakkuk’s Penny

—Mitchell Hegman

The Maiden Step

Yesterday, I drove up to the cabin and completed the concrete slab project by stripping the forms and backfilling the edges with soil. The finish on the concrete is lovely. Desiree did a great job on the surface, and there are no rock pockets along the sides.

As much as I like rocks, they are not useful when they form air pockets within concrete.

Before driving back home, I misted the slab with water to encourage a slow curing process, which produces stronger concrete. Although the sacks of premix say you can walk on the pour after 24 hours, I have yet to take a single step on it. Maybe Des can take the "maiden step" the next time we go to the cabin.

The Slab After Stripping the Forms

Backfilled Slab

—Mitchell Hegman

The Big Pour

A couple of weeks ago, Desiree and I set the forms for a concrete pad at the lower entry door to the cabin. Yesterday, we poured and finished the concrete.

Poured-in-place concrete projects are backbreaking. In this case, using 50, 60, and 80-pound sacks of premix, we fed a portable mixer to produce 18 batches of concrete, which we then bucketed and shoveled into place. The pour itself required almost four hours. Finishing the concrete and cleaning up the far-flung construction mess took another two hours.

We also learned something: Desiree is a pretty good concrete finisher. Good to know for future projects.

Before the First Batch

Des Working the First Two Pours

Me Feeding the Mixer

Finished Slab

—Mitchell Hegman

The Ghost of the Woods

People sometimes call the elk the ghost of the woods, and it is difficult to imagine a more fitting nickname. Elk weigh several hundred pounds, yet they can slip through a forest soundlessly. They may appear in the half-light of dawn or prance from a bank of morning fog as if materializing from another world. Then, just as suddenly, a dozen might vanish without notice. A few silent strides into the timber, and creatures taller than most horses simply dissolve among the trees and shadows. Tawny hides blend with the colors of bark and dried grass, while their keen noses and sharp ears detect us long before we can detect them.

Elk have certainly lived up to their moniker at my cabin. I have owned the property for 26 years this month and have never personally spotted an elk there. I have seen them near my place. I have found their tracks and pellets. But the elk have eluded me entirely.

Yesterday, in a new twist, when I cleared my game camera photographs, I found a dozen images of elk near my cabin. Some were captured in darkness. Others appeared in broad daylight, caught in a single image before melting back into the woods.

Elk in the Dark

Elk in the Daylight

—Mitchell Hegman

Easier

My life would be easier if I could use more of my own options for spelling and grammar.

—Mitchell Hegman

Happy 250th Birthday, America!

Happy 250^th Birthday, America. It seems like just yesterday I was celebrating your 200^th.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Prodigal Chipmunk

Yesterday, I live-trapped two more chipmunks in our never-ending scheme to reduce the looting of Desiree's flowers and exotic (at least to our prairie) vegetables planted around our house. I noticed the second caught critter ping-ponging around inside the trap at midday.

"Jeez," I said when I picked up the trap, "you need to chill before you have a mini chipmunk heart attack. I am just going to drive you down the road and let you go."

After picking up the trap, I headed back into the house as a shortcut to the garage. "Tell you what," I said to the trapped critter, "I'll turn you into the prodigal chipmunk and give you a big adventure."

With that said, I gave it a quick tour of the dining room and kitchen, explaining things. "We call that a table. Those are chairs. Check out the LED lights. Nice, right?" When we got to my laptop, I hovered the trap near the screen. "That's a computer. You're not likely to see one of those again."

A few minutes later, we found ourselves over a mile down the road, where I released the prodigal chipmunk into a knot of tall sagebrush. "Just consider this," I said as the chipmunk vanished into the tangles. "The latest theories suggest we may all be nothing more than minor players in a grand simulation."

The Prodigal Chipmunk

—Mitchell Hegman

From Which Came the Earth

The Maya imagined that before there were mountains to climb or fields to till, before dry land lay beneath the first person's feet, there existed only an endless sea. Upon these restless primordial waters drifted a vast crocodilian creature. This ancient beast was not merely an inhabitant of the deep but was, in the end, the very stuff from which our earthen world would emerge. The creator gods subdued this monster and divided its great form into the features of the Earth itself. From its flanks came the forests. From its back emerged the mountain chains.

In this scenario, the Rocky Mountain basin in which I live might have been a small crease someplace on the back of this primeval beast.

I'm not opposed to this idea.

Mayan Ruins

—Mitchell Hegman

Flunking Another Test

Welp, I flunked another basic human intelligence test. This one involves the process of grinding your own coffee. The idea behind grinding coffee is fairly straightforward: you drop whole pre-roasted beans into a grinder, press a button, and the grinder reduces the beans to grounds that collect in a receiving vessel below.

Thing is, there are no honest shortcuts here. You can’t grind coffee if you forget to drop in the beans. You get nothing if you neglect to press the button. And you produce a grand mess if you forget to place the receiving vessel below the grinder.

So, as you might have surmised from the photograph I shared, I neglected to place the vessel below the grinder before I pressed the button and fluttered off to find some potato chips, which I should not be eating. The photograph features what I found when I returned to the task at hand.

My Coffee Mess

—Mitchell Hegman

America (An Explanation)

Let me tell you about America. To begin, we have an inordinate number of actors, realtors, car salesmen, and oilmen. We also have a few cowboys. One of the cowboys once stepped inside a café where I was eating breakfast and teased our good-looking waitress. That occurred in a town named Wisdom. Wisdom is just down the road, a statement that has a nice, distinct ring to it. Wisdom, Montana, and West Yellowstone, Montana, seem perpetually to compete to provide America's coldest temperature during the daily winter weather reports.

America: the nation.

America is a great military force. Some of our forces are presently hovering over a country called Iran, which, coincidentally, has a few oilmen and lots of oil.

We, I mean America, again, also landed men on the moon and returned them home. On a smaller scale, we sometimes carefully cut women open and insert fake boobs in them. Long before this stuff, some of our soldiers chased Indian men, women, and children across mostly barren plains. Just up the road a spell (as they like to say here) is the Big Hole National Battlefield. At that location, in August of 1877, the Nez Perce fought against the 7th Infantry Regiment.

In other words, they fought against America.

As an American, I like birds.

—Mitchell Hegman