The Hermits' Rest

What are little dogs made of?

We have a better idea about what at least two of our dogs are made of, now that Carlton and Benito’s Embark tests have come back. There were mysteries solved and theories confirmed, too. My guess is that Penney’s swab didn’t take, because hers didn’t come back.

You don’t need DNA results for us. We are obviously American Stair Dogs. (They spend much of their days here. Penney is trained to move her front paws when I approach.)

I was pretty sure Benito was not the purebred Chihuahua that he was purchased as. People guessed he had Fox Terrier or Miniature Pinscher.

I was right about our little fellow. At least one of his parents was a mutt.

My guess is that one grandparent was a total mutt. The Poodle surprised me, though.

I never had any good guesses about Carlton other than there must be some pit bull in there. And there had to be some breeds with the Merle gene.

We had a nice rest this evening. He’s my big lap dog.

It turns out Carlton is a big ole mix, as we knew, but there are some good surprises in there.

He’s about as pitty as I expected but the Mountain Cur thing threw me for a loop. I didn’t know we had any of those here. We do have lots of cowdogs that they call curs, but I thought those were mostly Black Mouth Curs. Seeing the ACD in there makes me surmise one parent was a working dog with those breeds mixed in. Then the other parent was probably a small dog that looked like a lab. Carlton has carefully hidden his Chihuahuan heritage. That’s a hoot.

Who knows how it works out? They are both quite the mixes! And I know enough to take these analyses with a grain of salt. I would have loved seeing what breeds contributed to Harvey, but there was no way he was gonna let me swab his saliva!

I didn’t pay the extra money to get their health analysis. Benito should be hardy now that his heart worms are treated. And I know Carlton has weird eyes. That’s enough.

Book Report: Noticing

I’m on a real streak of fascinating nature books these days. Noticing, by Richard Louv (2026) is no exception. Lee found it in a bookstore and rushed it to me. Louv also wrote Last Child in the Woods a decade or so ago, which led many educators to try to get more natural world experiences into the curricula for young children.

Admittedly, most of the topics in Noticing are familiar to me, since I do spend a lot of my time, well, noticing. What I enjoyed were the interviews with researchers, artists, and philosophers about how being around nature affects us humans for the better. It gives me hope that humanity won’t completely lose its connections to the world of which we are a part–just a part, mind you.

Another reason I enjoyed going through this book is that it fulfilled my oh-so-human need for confirmation of my biases. Nothing is more soothing to me than going through hundreds of pages of discussion with people I completely agree with and who help me feel like I’m on the right track in how I live my life. It’s too bad there are so many folks out there who will go, huh? (I had a long talk with an old friend last night who literally shuddered at the idea of a life not surrounded by people and full of bugs and weeds.)

I guess she wouldn’t like this beauty from the chicken house, a Deduced Graphic moth

One of my favorite concepts Louv brings up in Noticing is that of having a First Place, which is where the book starts out. It rang so true to me. The first place you explore, get to know, feel grounded in, and feel a part of is your first place. Louv says:

Through the years, we live in newer places, and if we’re lucky, we bond with them. All these places become the geography of our lives. But there is only one First Place.

p. 13

My early memories of the first home I remember, in Gainesville, Florida, are very strong. I remember the plants, the insects, the heat, the wind, and the smell of camellias. I’ve written before about the fact that I am overcome with a profound sense of peace and “home” whenever I return. I think I’m attuned to the ley lines or some magnetic something that vibrates correctly with me.

I have not bonded with every place I lived. My last house in Illinois, the Bobcat house in Austin, and this ranch are the ones I feel most at home in. I find it a bit sad that I never could attach myself to the house in Round Rock where my kids grew up. I was interested in all the plants and animals in the surrounding area, but the crowded suburbs were too full of “noise” for me. Hmm.

That’s what the stories and science that intermingle throughout this book will do for you–send you off on tangents about your own experiences. If you are not someone who practices the art of active noticing, I hope you will read this book and give it a try. Your life will be enriched, you will feel more connection with the unity of the consciousness around you, and you will feel less alone. As the review on the cover by Carl Safina says:

This book is a how-to manual for getting back to your soul.

If nothing else, it’s important to remember what Louv shares in the future, which is we don’t necessarily have to fix things or bring them back to some ideal state. It’s also okay to simply observe how nature changes and adapts over time. That’s what it is supposed to do!

Basking in friendship glow

We just returned from the 50th wedding anniversary party of our friends Jack and Jennifer S. in Cedar Park, Texas. You’ve seen many pictures of me and Jen acting mushy from friendship when we go camping. There’s no way we couldn’t go to this party (and we also brought Martha with us from Cameron).

Here we are looking mushy from friendship again.

In addition to really good food that I didn’t eat much of, I was just thrilled to see so many of our other old friends from my years at Live Oak UU Church. It’s wonderful that I see so many of them on Facebook still, but it filled me with joy to see them in person.

It was also great to see old friends my kids’ age, like Lindsay, who said I can share this.

I remembered my vow to myself. I made sure to tell people who mean a lot to me how grateful I am for them. How often do you get a chance to do that? I even remembered all my friends’ names! It felt incredibly fine to share my true appreciation for those whose words buoy me up and whose humor brightens my days. Sniff.

One such friend is Lyndy. As you can see we were mushy with friendship.

While I was catching up with all my friends and their adult children, Lee made a new friend and enjoyed talking to him. Thank goodness for Jamiel!

I’m so grateful we were able to attend and celebrate our friends along with our other friends. Seeing older friends looking great and younger friends blossoming into adulthood was a privilege. It reminds me to treasure my friends at home now, while I can!

I can’t believe I know anyone who’s been married 50 years! Wow!

Nothing wrong with uneventful days

Yeah, the last couple of days have been fairly low stress, with just a couple of bobbles. Also the blog prompts are so repetitive that I didn’t feel like answering the last few. Nonetheless, there have been highlights.

Master Naturalist meeting was last night, and I even made the end of the Board meeting (but missed some ruffled feelings, thankfully). A highlight of the meeting was getting a photo with all our living Presidents as our current one received a commemorative Bald Eagle pin.

The other highlight has been Stumpy’s growing popularity with its avian buddies. We now have little flocks of House Sparrows vying for stump space, as well as Cardinals seeking out their sunflower seeds. My patience has really paid off! Here are blurry phone photos to prove it. I’ll have to bring out the good camera now that there’s something to photograph.

Look at all the birds in the tree awaiting their turn.

I’ve felt good about work, because I’ve hit a few deadlines, but I’m glad the weekend is here. We had a pleasant dinner with my son and his partner at the new restaurant in town, which always is a pleasure. I do enjoy the little downtown area.

It rained somewhere near here this evening, but not here. We are back in crispy season, with extreme heat and brown plants. I’m glad to have water to look at here! Tomorrow I’m working with the water garden some more, too.

Stumpy success

Now, that took a while. The huge stump has been sitting in the corner of the back yard for months.

It’s been many weeks since flat bits were created on the surface.

Spring Stumpy with bird bath fountain and flat spots.

I have been adding bird seed whenever rain or wind washed it off. I waited patiently, knowing the birds had plenty to eat after all the rain. But yesterday, out of the corner of my eye, I caught motion. A sparrow was eating some seed!

Today I looked over at the stump every time I went out to check the bird phone for new birds (Swainson’s Hawk today!). Sure enough, the House Sparrows are eating my admittedly low-quality offerings.

Since I’ve established that birds have discovered Stumpy’s magical gifts, I can now give them better stuff. I even sprinkled some corn mixture on the ground to attract the doves who have been hanging around. Tomorrow I’ll break out some better seed mix I’ve been hoarding so maybe songbirds will see what’s there. I can store all the food safely in my birding hut, too, since I have a tightly sealed bin. Winter may be fun when all the various sparrows return.

It makes me feel trusted when Carlton sleeps right next to me—he feels safe.

Note from self?

If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?

I hope my future self (maybe when I’m 102) would tell me how proud she is of all the learning and growing past me did, and that she appreciates all the memories of my fun with nature, friends, and family. My guess is she’ll have a lot to say.

Thankfully, today was uneventful, which allowed me to get lots of work done in between helping people, which is also part of my job, come to think of it. Other than work, I just enjoyed the animals and their antics.

Apache always thinks everyone else’s food dish is better.

There must have been something outside this evening, because there was sure a lot of barking. But I forgive the dogs, due to mostly being cute.

Watch Benito’s tail.

And hey! I finally saw a bird eating from my tree stump feeder. I kept putting food on the stump, just in case. No photos of that, just dogs. Enjoy.

I’d like to talk to you about life insurance.

It makes me irrationally happy to see Benito play with toys. The other dogs no longer do. He is so full of pure joy.

My favorite local specialty

What’s the best local dish you’ve ever eaten while traveling?

Ah. I can answer this even in my exhausted travel state. Then I’ll tell you how close I came to being duped.

Bonus NM flower: Apache plume (***Fallugia paradoxa)***

I have two favorite dishes from my travels. First are the cluster oysters at Hudson’s on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. I do love those, as anyone who has had to endure me trying to open every single oyster can attest (right, stepsisters?).

The other thing I remember is much simpler. It was an enchilada lunch in southern New Mexico, I forget exactly where. It was the perfect New Mexican style meal, with plenty of green chile goodness and the best beans and rice with it. I eat a LOT of Mexican food, so this had to be great to stand out. I hope we find that place again.

There ya go.

So, as we were driving home today, I got a message from my friend Trixie listing a bunch of items a family member needed to sell. It sounded like something she’d do. And I was excited to see a skid steer in the list, because we could use one, and the price was good.

So I messaged about it. She said other family were also interested (red flag) but that a deposit of $1,000 would hold it (red flag). I had to talk to Lee and Chris first. She stressed the urgency (red flag). I shared the photos she sent to Chris and he said it seemed like a good deal. I asked where we could come inspect it. She said they were “near here.” Where was “here?” (Red flag) Still I started to to PayPal the money to Trixie. She sent an email address that was not hers (red flag). Then I sent an image asking if it was right, because I didn’t want to pay a stranger. Silence (final flag). So I did what all those trainings at work said to do. I called her.

She was all flustered. “I’ve been hacked!” She said. So. No money went to fake Trixie and we don’t have a skid steer. But I do have my money. I sure blithely went through a lot of red flags. Am I turning into one of those gullible old people? Geez.

Don’t fall for any deal with a sense of urgency that seems to come from a friend. Call them after the first red flag.

The dogs were very happy to see us when we got home. Much licking occurred.

Looking and learning

I’m pretty much wiped out, but today was extra, extra fun. I enjoyed listening to and watching birds behind the hotel. I got to watch Lesser Goldfinches eating thistle seeds and the happiest Raven, who had scored an entire biscuit. I also saw unidentified animals in the hills.

Hard to believe this is behind the business district.

Next we met a fun young woman named Alison, who showed us some representative houses here that might work as summer homes. Alison was a lot of fun. We met in a restaurant where her fiancé painted a cool mural.

There was quite a collection of properties to see, ranging from sad small condos to rustic cabins to a house nicer than ours. It reminded me of the good old days when we bought houses and fixed them up.

Of course, I also found flowers that elk hadn’t eaten. This is scarlet cinquefoil.

I didn’t think anything would match all my criteria:

Not too big
No close neighbors
Space to park an RV
Lots of nature
Attractive view

Two did. One rustic place in need of some TLC near town, and one doublewide in a more rural area in really good shape. (There are so many well preserved mobile homes here.) They both are quirky, which I like.

The lady who owned the rural house had taken great care of the yard, which I liked. It was very low maintenance. The other one needed occasional weed whacking. Anyway. Here are a couple things I enjoyed in other houses.

Upstairs family room in a house that was too big

After a lot of driving around, we dropped Alison back off at the restaurant and went back to look at the area where the rural house is. It’s a big, green high mesa with a mix of double wides and nice traditional homes. There are also many horse properties nearby. However, the most interesting thing is in the middy of the neighborhood. A rock shop. Not just a shop, but the place where miners of fancy rocks with geodes and other beautiful formations inside process the raw material!

We got to see all the grinding and polishing stations. It was fascinating! We got to look at beautiful examples of the finished products and watch a slideshow of how they mine the rocks (almost all in New Mexico). after mining, they put back all the dirt they dug and seed it with appropriate plants. I was impressed.

After that, Lee took me to the Noisy Water winery outdoor gathering place, where we sat under trees and drank wine and ate charcuterie. I also listened to birds. Of course. They had a petting zoo, so I went over and said hi to the goats and other residents.

This one licked my hand clean. Yes I washed it.

But wait, you ask. Did you see any interesting mammals? Of course I did. Many elk, of which I just share a few, and a herd of wild horses serenely grazing next to a parking lot. Apparently that’s common. That was the last fun wild animal I was looking for, so yay. No bears. That’s fine.

This was a fun whirlwind trip. I’m glad we are coming back in September so I can do non-real estate activities.

I want to look at more flowers like this Rocky Mountain zinnia

I have no idea if Lee intends to buy a property. I understand why. Texas is getting more scary to us as time goes on. But we love our ranch and don’t want to go away from our family there. A summer getaway would be ok.

It’s a wild life!

Today I did my best to fulfill Lee’s goal of looking at every neighborhood in and around Ruidoso, New Mexico that might contain a residence that fulfills his dream of a summer getaway in a cool Mountain climate. Of course, it was hot today, but ten degrees cooler than home.

Since we aren’t remotely thinking of relocating, the beautiful horse properties and mountain estates we saw were just eye candy. We looked at the other end of the scale, too, such as numerous creatively updated 60s and 70s mobile homes. Mostly we looked at small cabin-like houses.

As Lee evaluated property, I took every opportunity to spot wildlife and look for birds. In fact, between listening at the hotel and looking in trees, I got five new life birds! One was a favorite, the Acorn Woodpecker. Here’s the list. I wish I’d seen that Lazuli Bunting!

My eagle eyes were on the lookout for others, such as these beauties. Poor Lee had to stop and back up.

I was excited to see deer a few times early in the travels. They have Mule Deer here, which are larger than white-tails and have large, expressive ears.

As it got later in the afternoon, I started seeing even larger deer. But, no, I figured out all for myself that they were elk. The first ones I saw here resting in the shade, and none have antlers right now, so they did look like deer.

I did get some plants, too. I’ll share them later. I should tell you our eating adventures. I had to stop with the driving and looking occasionally, because my eyes got tired. So we had an early lunch at a great place called Casitas. There was healthy food and much charm. Probably not to Lee’s taste, but I loved my fancy avocado toast and my dulce de leche latte. Mmm.

After a few more hours of going up and down mountains, being saddened at flood damage, and being jarred by potholes I requested my treat of the day, which was to visit Noisy Water Winery and cash in on my wine club membership perks. Wow, the club members’ lounge was nice, quiet, and beautiful.

I tried four different wines, one that just launched (2022 Demi goddess), one older white that had aged SO well, and the members’ exclusive, which was a rich dessert wine. Oh, and a red varietal I’d never tried, I liked it liked more than I expected. I did come home with three bottles of white wine. As I am the only wine drinker in our household, it will last a while.

The final place we stopped was a park we visited years ago with Anita. It was not great for birding, since a huge motorcycle group went back and forth while we were there. But I enjoyed the scenery and Lee even said my hair looked good. Wow!

Whew. So much mountain beauty, wildlife, and interesting homes. I’ll sleep well tonight.

Feeling sorta enchanted

Today was interesting. We drove to the Land of Enchantment (New Mexico) all in one day. We made it to Ruidoso, where we are driving around looking at property, which is the only thing that’s gotten Lee excited in a long time. So of course I came along. I figured there would probably be birds and wildlife to enjoy, and my favorite winery, which I haven’t visited since before my son went away.

I’ve already hit the jackpot in the wildlife department, so I guess I could go on home. You see, as we were approaching one of the small towns in the foothills, I saw something move next to the road. I was ready for deer or elk, but not for a very large flock of bighorn sheep! I was very surprised, but realized I was next to a rocky mountain— a mountain that is rocky, that is.

I kept saying to Lee that I saw sheep, the ones with the big horns! Duh. After I calmed down and got cell signal, I looked it up. Yes, they are found here. What they were doing all bunched up between the highway and a fence, I do not know.

We are in the circle. Image from Wikipedia.

The sheep definitely made up for the challenges of trying to work in the car, which I did, successfully, but with some effort. The laptop didn’t last the whole trip. And luckily I was finished with meetings while we were still in the flat desert and had signal.

This is exactly what I saw, only it looked more confused. From Wikipedia.

We got here and found the outside of the hotel to be a mess. Why? Because it’s SINKING. There was horrible flooding here again this year (after a worse one last year). It’s the monsoon season, and it’s getting worse, according to the sweet but weird Denny’s waitress this evening.

They are putting pins under the building down to the bedrock.

Oh yeah. Forest fires happen, too, but mostly in the National Forest. That should keep out the riff raff.

However our room is very cute. Has a separate living area and a big desk.

Lee is tired from driving, so we walked next door to a rather quirky Denny’s (with the waitress I mentioned). Everyone there seemed to be tripping or something. Very cheerful, extra funny, but also confused. We enjoyed the wildness. Some of the wildness came from two darling young Apache girls, who were very active but quite charming. They chattered and sang but were so cute you just had to laugh along. I talked to the mom as we were leaving. She was so tired. I think she was relieved that we and the staff were enjoying them. I bet it gets tiring all day every day.

This giant cicada mobile or something was in Roswell.

I’m looking forward to sneaking in some nature tomorrow. I remember this was the first place I ever saw a raven. But I’ll look at whatever Lee wants to look at.

Another Roswell sight. That alien museum exhibit must be a hoot.

Bye!