Wood Lathe

Yesterday, while passing through the power tool section of a hardware store, I came upon a wood lathe on display.

I stopped and looked the lathe over.

Way back in my days of high school wood shop, I thought having a wood lathe would be a pretty cool retirement thing.  I imagined myself turning out all kinds of fancy widgets in a small hobby shop.

After staring at the price tag on the lathe for a second, I walked away and purchased a paintbrush instead.

Paintbrush: the new cool!

--Mitchell Hegman

Three Rules for an Effective Business Lunch

1. Don’t order food with long messy noodles or hard shells.

2. It’s acceptable to engage in personal conversations, but business should always remain the focus.

3. Don’t lick food off your plate while humming “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

--Mitchell Hegman

The Reason

The common adage is this: There is a reason for everything.  While most adages may be more clever than accurate, I think this one holds true for the most part.  Yesterday, for example, I proved (once again) that I can be judged an idiot by what I say.  While talking about that girl’s identical twin sisters and their similar habits regarding how they respond to phone calls, I said this: “They are so much alike.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Rainsmell

Came rainsmell to this dry land in the last hour of darkness.  Came a tense silence to the houseside crickets and their jittery choir.  Up, then, with the scent of grass recalling a certain June shower.  And out with the ancient—every exposed sedimentary stone recalling the river bottom whence it first settled as purple mud.  And, finally, more vital than all else, the sharper perfume of sage fanning across the open prairie.

--Mitchell Hegman

Reds

Given the stress of a July without rain and a normal propensity to drift into autumn colors early, parts of the high mountain huckleberry patch have already started to display red.   Posted are a few photographs I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.

--Mitchell Hegman

20 Pounds of Flying Housecat

For whatever reason, my 20 pounds of housecat is highly annoyed by fluttering moths of any size.  A few minutes ago, an acrobatic moth no larger than a grain of rice looped through my living room.  My cat immediately launched from my lap and took after the moth.

If acrobatic is one end of a scale, my cat is on the other end of the scale.

That crashing sound you just heard from my den?

Moth: 1

Cat: 0

--Mitchell Hegman

A Cabin on the Lake

That girl and I spent a night in a cabin located not more than twenty feet from the shores of Lake McDonald inside Glacier National Park.  The lake’s water is notably clear and the mountains there spare no angles in stacking against the sky.  Throughout the afternoon and again in the morning, the lake and mountains shifted in lighting patterns and color composition.  I found myself scrambling down to the lakeshore every few minutes to capture an image in my digital SLR camera.

--Mitchell Hegman