Signs of Maturity

Signs of Maturity:

• You spend several minutes debating which type of grass clippers are best.
• Going to bed for the night is based solely on time.
• You don’t want to see figure skaters fall on their ass.
• Swearing is the second thing to come to mind.
• You are an expert on mushroom identification.
• You plot calendars two years at a time and include dates for pumping out the septic system.
• The onus is on you.
• You dust the steps in your house once a week.
• You square-up mis-hung pictures in other people’s homes.

—Mitchell Hegman  

Cellphone Number Migration

In the long run and, apparently, in the short run, cellphone numbers migrate from phone to phone and from person to person.

A jarring example of this occurred some three or four months after my wife passed in 2011.  While staring at my cellphone late one afternoon, I thought about how I sometimes called my wife at midday just to chat a little.

What would happen, I wondered, if I called her number now that she had been gone for all these months?

I dialed my late wife’s cell number.  After a few rings, a woman answered.  Aghast, I immediately ended the call and pushed the phone away from me.  I spent the next several minutes wishing I had not tried calling.

Now, some eleven years later, I have another strange cellphone number experience to share.

We recently got Desiree a “Montana” (406 area code) cellphone.  Almost as soon as we commissioned the phone, she began receiving calls and messages from our area code.  In addition to providing the phone number from which the calls and text messages originated, the name of the person attached to the number appeared on Desiree’s phone.

“I know that name,” I told Desiree when she showed me information for one of the callers.  “If that’s who I think it is, I sold my grandparent’s house to her.”

Following a third (unanswered) call from the person in question, I texted from Desiree’s phone to tell her the phone number belonged to a new party.  When she immediately responded with an apology, I sent a message back to see if I might confirm who she was.

Within a few minutes, the woman and I found ourselves talking on the phone.  She and her husband did purchase the house from me.  Her husband, now deceased, had called me about the time I started building my new home on the lake and asked me if I wanted the fancy front door from my grandmother’s house.  He had saved it after replacing it with a new, more energy-efficient door.

I happily collected the door.  Furthermore, I planned the layout of my house around it.  The door is now repurposed as the entry to the den from my kitchen.   I mentioned the door and texted a photograph of it as I chatted with the woman on the other end of Desiree’s phone.     

Desiree’s phone number apparently (and not all that long ago) belonged to a gentleman from Townsend, Montana.

Posted is a photograph of the door from my grandparent’s house.

The Pacific Street Door

—Mitchell Hegman  

The Breakfast Club

The immediate area around my home (something you might loosely define as a yard) is primarily populated with native species common to the prairie and low hills in which I reside.  I have also nurtured a few plants and trees from outside this microclimate.  Some of these more exotic inhabitants require hand-watering on occasion.  More importantly, the local mule deer find them delicious.

Among the plants and trees favored by the deer you will find: two Mayday trees, a linden tree, two chokecherry bushes, a crabapple, and a few oddball flowers.

From May all the way through summer, the mule deer are regular visitors to my yard.  Each May, just prior to the birth of their next generation, they form something of a breakfast club.  They arrive as a mob—bucks, does, and yearlings—and browse through the edible offerings.

Posted today are images of the breakfast club.

The Breakfast Club

Looking Over the Menu

Eating the Mayday Tree

—Mitchell Hegman  

Weird Awakening

I wake from dream in which my buddy and I are running down a long grassy hill while wielding double-headed axes.  We are on our way to meeting our best girls.

—Mitchell Hegman  

Calypso Bulbosa (Fairy Slipper)

Calypso bulbosa, more commonly called fairy slipper, is a diminutive orchid found on the forest floors in Western Montana in early spring.  The flowers are the size of the end of your pinky and rise no more than a few inches above the forest duff from which they have emerged.

Fairy slippers are study in living spare.  The plant, a perennial, produces but a single leaf, and does so in the autumn, generally around September.  This leaf survives through winter, tolerating deep snow in the northern parts of its range. With the arrival of spring, the orchid plant uprights its showy flowers.  At the same time the single leaf of the plant begins to fade away.  In the end, the orchid is leafless for most of the summer.

To survive with such a spare footprint, the fairy slipper is a parasite.  They thrive by exploiting a fungus in the soil that shares nutrients taken from the roots of trees.  If you know much about Indian paintbrush, this is a familiar story.  They are a parasite of similar fashion.  This means, among other things, neither plant can be successfully transplanted.

Finally, the flower of the fairy slipper orchid possesses no nectar.  This renders the flower useless to pollinators.  The orchid must attract pollinators by deception.  The scent and shape of the flower mimics those that do have nectar, which lures in soon-to-be-frustrated bumble bees.

Today, I share my annual photograph of fairy slippers from alongside my cabin in the woods.

Fairy Slipper Flowers

—Mitchell Hegman  

Christmas in May

I know a few folks for whom Christmas is a yearlong concern.  My friends Linda Mook Scheid and Joe Murgel immediately pop to mind on this.  I am pretty sure both of them could tell how many days are remaining until Christmas on most any given day.

They are definitely not alone in living within the spirit of Christmas.

When Desiree and I arrived home from our trip to Eastern Montana a bit after 7:00 Wednesday evening, I noticed a shipping box on the landing outside the front door.  After unloading our traveling goodies from the car, I retrieved the package from the front door.  “I’m not sure what this is,” I told Desiree, “I thought everything I recently ordered came in.” 

The package, I soon discovered, contained a box within the shipping box.  Inside the second box, I found a ceramic Christmas tree.

One of the papers accompanying tree the offered a message: “Welcome to Montana Desiree!”  The paperwork also indicated that my friend from grade school on, Sandi, sent the gift to Desiree.

I must admit, Christmas on May, works in this instance.  Both Desiree and I beamed our best smiles after opening the gift.

Thank you, Sandi Coyle Benson!

And—oh yes—Merry Christmas!

Christmas in May

—Mitchell Hegman  

Drive-by Shooting with a Camera

I am teaching Desiree the fine art of what I call “drive-by shooting” with a camera.  In this case we are using smarter-than-me-phones for our cameras.

Two drive-by shooting types can be practiced.

In one drive-by type, you simply snap a photograph through the window of the car as you zip along the highway.  Sometimes, you may roll down the window to make certain glare from the glass doesn’t foul the image.  My brother-in-law, Terry, engaged in a version of this where he shoved his phone out into the wind through an open window and promptly dropped the phone onto the highway.

Neither my brother-in-law nor I recommend this method while still rolling along.

The other type of drive-by shooting calls for stopping the car for a moment so you can hang the phone out the window and frame a quick shot.

Desiree engaged in drive-by shootings of the scenery on our drive home from Colstrip.  She has become especially fond of capturing images of Montana’s snow-capped mountains ranges.

I am posting two of her drive-by images of the Crazy Mountains. 

—Mitchell Hegman