The Huckleberry Problem

In my corner of the universe, approximately 6,400 huckleberries are required to fill a one-gallon container.  I made the calculations myself, thank you.  And I did so several times to assure some degree of accuracy.

I pick each and every one of my berries by hand.  I don’t use a “rake” or any other mechanical device to speed up the process or to glean a massive harvest.  Generally, you must allow me about four hours to pick a gallon—white spiders, leaves, purple hands, and sticks included.

I am not opposed to stopping and watching birds or stopping to study a flower or two while picking.  I am not a machine.  Frankly, my hours in the huckleberry patch are some of the best hours of my life.  Huckleberries, by dint of fortune, grow in the loveliest places—grizzly bears, bruising climbs, and deerflies bites included.  When picking huckleberries, I am able to shut down all problems pressing against me in life.  The mountains take me in. The powerful scent of the berries themselves.  The dizzying patchworks of shade and light.  Maybe the sound of water tumbling down through a creek nearby.  A lone bird calling from far away.

Huckleberry picking is an escape portal.

But we have a problem with huckleberries.  Well, we have two problems.  The first problem is that we call them huckleberries here in Montana.  They are actually mountain blueberries.

I can live with that problem.

The second problem is that, throughout the Pacific Northwest, huckleberry habitat is slowly shrinking away.  Once thriving patches are becoming smaller and smaller.  Surprisingly, studies have revealed that undisturbed forests are the least productive places for huckleberries. 

Huckleberries need wildfire.

The most productive huckleberry patches are presently found on the eastern and northern slopes, in areas that were either burned over by wildfire decades ago or logged and burned a dozen or so years previously.  When, following the Great Fire of 1910, forest managers started squelching fires as soon as they started, abnormally overgrown forests began to slowly squeeze out the huckleberries.

Huckleberries tend to flourish in those middle-aged forests where not in competition with every other thing that eventually comes to thrive in the forest.  They like a 50 percent forest—say a slope that is only half covered with trees and semi-shady.  Over more recent years, fire has gradually and purposely been reintroduced into the forests of the West.  We may yet see a reversal in the decline of huckleberry production in our forests.

In the meantime, starting sometime in mid to late July, you will find me between 4,000 and 7,000 feet high in the mountains (the elevation sweet spot where big huckleberries grow).  I will likely have a gallon bucket and bear spray looped through my belt.

I am about to enter the escape portal.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sources: John Ashely, Huckleberry Culture, USDA, US Forest Service, Ellen Horowitz

Announcements, Part Two

Today we gather at the corner of First and Main.

As a social experiment, the city has decided to randomly capture people in nets and relocate them to different neighborhoods.  Details can be found in a pamphlet we will be handing out a bit later.

The Parks Department is pleased to announce that they have received a private grant to construct a bounce park for pet turtles.

The police department reports that little Francine, the girl who beat cancer, has stolen the heart of the city.

A reminder as we approach the heat of summer: Water is awesome!

Finally, starting next Tuesday, anyone named Hank shall be referred to as “the person formerly known as Hank.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Announcements, Part One

Today, we gather at the marigolds.

By their own consensus vote, the mule deer have assured us that they will stop eating the marigolds.   Not so the native gay feather.  Not so the fire wheels.

The ladybugs have agreed to move their meet-and-greet to the wood roses on Saturday morning.  Aphids are urged not to attend.

As a courtesy, the Northside Wasps wish to inform the Eastside Ants that they have detected the presence of antlions near the chokecherry bushes.  For the safety of the ants, they are urged to avoid the chokecherry.

Finally, a reminder that huckleberries are ripening at most elevations.  And remember, those berries are not going to pick themselves!

--Mitchell Hegman

Sunset, July 26

The arrival and departure of late evening thunderstorms over the last few days has made for some striking sunsets.  Today, I am posting photographs I captured outside my house the night before last.

--Mitchell Hegman

Heron Blue

Most songs are wholly based on repetition.  John Hartford, the singer-songwriter, sometimes dancer, sometimes steamboat pilot, said something much like that long before me.  If you fail to recognize Hartford’s name, perhaps you know his song “Gentle on my Mind,” made famous by Glen Campbell.

I have always liked John Hartford’s stuff.  I own two of his albums.  John Hartford was odd.  He was a marriage of hippie and redneck.  And he did not take shit seriously.

Hartford is, sadly, no longer with us.  His name was actually “Harford,” but Chet Atkins (another famous musician) convinced him to change his last name to Hartford.  Hartford was a descendant of Patrick Henry.  Patrick Henry was the fellow famous for saying: “Give me liberty, or give me death” during our initial struggle for American independence.  John Hartford was also first cousin to Tennessee Williams.  Tennessee Williams was a famous Southern playwright.  He wrote A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie.

Anyhow, back to the music.

The repetitious beats and the repeating notes—the sweet predictability—is much of what draws me (and likely you) into a song.   This is why we might tap our feet or sway in a certain way as we listen.   And there is something deeper that accesses me.  Something primal.  I don’t know how to explain this, but some songs can strike me as sad or joyous almost immediately.  All of that, a function of the notes, the chords, the specific repetitions.  Obviously, if the song is not strictly an instrumental, the vocals and lyrics will also contribute to the mood.

I cannot say that I prefer a happy sounding song to one that strikes me as sad.

Today I am posting a song that I find somber, yet hauntingly lovely.  The song is particularly repetitions and unchanging.  The song is fairly long.  Strangely, more often than not, I will play this songs two or three times in a row when I listen to it.

Don’t know why I do that.  I just do.

I give you Sun Kil Moon and their song Heron Blue.

--Mitchell Hegman

If the video posted here fails, please try this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkdsOWfSXME

The Decision

Should I eat Mitch and that girl’s little orange flowers?  Or should I walk away?

--Mitchell Hegman

Meeting the Day

Some days, it is enough to simply stand at my window and watch my trees shaking hands with the wind.

--Mitchell Hegman