I was a bit worried about how the chickens were going to do in all this rain, as I mentioned earlier, so I made a shelter inside the pullet house for the two who like to hide and covered the cage in there.
Star and Henley check out my sad little shelter. Henley likes to hide in enclosed areas, but her cardboard box died in the rain. The hens can still roost on top, but they can have more shelter if they want it. Meanwhile, Sapphire is relieved to have some dry food.
I really was wondering if they’d drown or something, especially with the way the skies looked all day.
Looking to the east.
However, every time I look outside, I see them roaming all over the place, delighting in all the new bugs the rain has served up. Usually the black hens stay close to the henhouse, but today they were all way out in the field. Still, when I called, they hauled butt to see me.
This is later, after I came back with more food. They come quickly!
So, none of the wet hens seem mad at all. The roosters are happy, too! Like Chris said, they’re just chickens. But, if I want to pamper them, I can, right (if you count piling tin roof materials up as pampering)?
It’s too muddy in the back of the pen, so I gave them fresh food at the front.
It was also raining like crazy when I went to the horses, so they get grass for dinner again. At least the calves are fine. They have a nice shelter. Too bad not everyone likes their accommodations.
“I still want to be in the pullet house, dammit.” Poor Patty.
Happy Friday to all! I’m especially happy, because I slept like a rock last night and am taking the day off to just do whatever I want to do, as long as it isn’t in a crowd of people!
What I wanted to do this morning was go check out the flooding. It rained a good deal again last night, and the creek spilled its banks, the fields are all full of puddles, and happy egrets and herons are everywhere. I’m happy to report that since the little pond filled back up, there is at least one bullfrog remaining (heard it last night, saw it splashing into the pond this morning).
Still not finished, but it’s full again. Note willow tree already trying to grow on the banks.
It was good to see the front pond all full. The dogs will be able to swim in there now, since Chris mowed all the plants from around it. And the water is happily flowing through the arroyo and down to the stream. That always makes me happy.
A tank any cattle rancher will be proud of.
Excess water heading out
Our gate had stopped working this morning, probably just ran out of juice from not getting much sun for a couple of days. I got it to open and made it stay open so our caregiver can get to Jim in the RV. Then I decided to take a walk, since there were no dogs outside and it was safe to go down the road. I was interested to see what was still alive and thriving after over a month with just a trace of rain. Here are some!
Morning glory is still glorious
Balloon vine never gives up
Our rare and beautiful yellow rain lilies.
Milkweed seeds! Hooray! They didn’t all get mowed down.
Snow on the prairie, still beautiful even if it ain’t good for cattle.
Some of the balloon vine flowers are headed down the creek, or stopped by the GIANT logs.
Dayflower and poison ivy are fine.
Blooming milkweed.
Lots and lots of yellow rain lilies.
Sunflowers hanging in there.
I continued walking, and enjoyed seeing all sorts of rain-laden clouds, and wet vultures drying their wings, chatting, or whatever they do on the fence.
Vulture chat time.
Scary clouds rolling in.
The flowers look so pretty against the green pasture.
The most exciting thing I saw was this:
Eggs!
Since they had obviously come out of a mound in the dirt, I figure these are turtle eggs that had recently hatched, perhaps prompted by the rain and lower temperatures. They are rubbery and soft, not like chicken or other bird eggs. I actually saw two nests with eggshells, and once I realized they are there, a few more nests that are still “cooking” (which I did not disturb).
Another nest
Eggshell up close
Turtles like to lay nests on the sides of roads, because they tend to have loose and sandy soil for easy digging. I hope these little guys made it and are off swimming away to wherever the floods take them!
Speaking of the flooding, I got a couple of photos of the creek. The new fence technique the Vrazels used across the creek seems to have held up, and it appears no new giant logs came through. This is a fairly normal amount of flooding for our little creek bottom, so it mostly made me happy to know the weather cycle is normal this year.
It’s out of the banks, but not very far.
You can see the top of the fence, so it’s still there.
I came back to check on the chickens, who all appear to have made it. They made four eggs yesterday, so the rain didn’t bother them too much. But, wow, the wet chicken area is stinky. I’ve got to get to work figuring out better ways to keep their food dry, too, especially the ones who aren’t free range (they all ran out yesterday while I was trying to cover the cage in the run where the new ones are, but in the end, they all ended up in the right place (though a couple of pullets lost their virginity, thanks to Bruce).
A symphony in gray, or hello from Gertie.
All in all, I think today is a good reward after working hard all week (and succeeding!). I’m glad I wasn’t too tired to go feed horses and check on them, too, because last night I had a good chat with the Ralph and the Vrazels, who were getting ready to harvest a couple of steers. It’s good to catch up on what’s going on, and being outdoors makes it a lot easier.
The last few days have not been in the realm of “fun” for me, for the most part. Just because I CAN do things doesn’t mean they aren’t stressful and tiring. I knew I had to change my team and work in a different way than before, so I did, but between actually doing it, needing support, and spending a LOT of time supporting confused people, by the time last night rolled around I was pooped.
The back pond is full again. And the grass is greener already. Photo by Lee Bruns.
When I got home, I was not up for wading through mud to feed the horses, and besides, I knew they had food and water, due to all the rain (the grass IMMEDIATELY grew). I did check on the very wet chickens and their very wet food (I can’t open one of their feeders, so, it was all in a very wet bowl). As I was checking on the new chickens, Patty ran into the pullet area and wouldn’t come back out. She went right over to poor Henley (who still doesn’t look great, but she’s eating and drinking). I tried as long as I could do remove her, but failed.
I am NOT leaving.
I crawled into bed and had ice cream for dinner. Self care! That was fun.
Today, it’s been raining all day again. The weather around here is just plain weird. But, it’s not hot. And the chimney leaked a lot less than yesterday. See, how great is that?
After surviving (set the bar low, Lee said) the three days of planning meetings with hundreds of people on Zoom, I was happy to find a box on the porch. It contained my new autumn wreath. It’s not too fancy, but will look good on my office door. I wanted to wait until after Labor Day, but I needed some fun, darn it! That will get me through another couple of months, anyway.
Velvet Pumpkins!
My boss said to take the afternoon off, because we’ve earned it, but of course I’ve had to deal with an ornery aging computer genius, and my team all want me to to one on ones and teach them complicated document formatting techniques. I wonder if I can do that while completely empty of mental strength?
I AM taking tomorrow off. Maybe it won’t rain and I can make it up to Apache and Fiona!
Have you ever heard someone say, “It never rains at my house?” My grandmother would say that. She lived a couple of miles from us when I was a kid, and it would always rain for us and not for her. Well, that is exactly what happened to the Hermits’ Rest Ranch in August.
It rained a few times in Cameron, maybe not a lot, but enough to water the trees a bit. Seven miles down the road, at the ranch, we watched as storms would endlessly form and dissipate around us. I’d be able to see and smell rain, but it would miss, or we’d get a few drops. Lee was excited the day we got .02″ – which barely wet the ground. It’s like we had a micro-drought, just around the Walker’s Creek community.
The rose bushes are getting watered.
My evergreen tree had started to die off, but we only had one set of hoses, which go to the new tree and the chickens. I was going to buy a new one after work today, so I could save it. All the cedar elm trees were turning brown and losing their leaves, not in a lovely fall show, but in a “we need water” display. The oaks still look okay. (I would have a picture, but the rain started in earnest right when I was driving by the best place to show this.)
But, hey, it’s September now. As we always say in this area, “Wait until September, and it will rain again.” And it has! Of course, Cameron seems to have more than we had at the ranch when I left an hour ago, but the radar shows it’s raining at home, too.
This was a half hour ago. College St. is now completely under water. Note how nice our grass doesn’t look.
Speaking of rain in Cameron. When it starts to rain sideways, the flashing on the chimney at the Pope Residence does not block the water. I arrived to the office just as a wind came up, and I heard the festive sounds of running water, heading straight to an electrical outlet. I quickly unplugged the fireplace and found the only bucket Chris hadn’t taken home when he cleaned up.
That looks safe, doesn’t it?
I’m glad it hadn’t been doing that all night! The wind has died down, and it looks like I won’t be hearing dripping all through my half day of intensive meetings today.
Honestly, though, I always hate the summer drought period, and for our micro-climate, this year was the worst since the Big Drought in 2011-12. I will not miss the giant cracks in the earth and the extremely crunchy grass. Apache will be happy to have at least a little green grass again (hopefully not enough to make him sick).
Lee just filled me in. Five inches of rain so far. As usual, we have gone directly from drought to flood!
This means the pond is filling up!
Happy September to all! And isn’t weather interesting?
Hi, readers of Mama Suna’s blog! I’m Vlassic, and I’ve been hanging around the Hermits’ Rest Ranch for the past two years. I like it here a lot. Wanna know why?
I’m long, but I have longer legs so I can jump high.
I have so many friends! At night I sleep in Jim’s RV. He is so nice to me, and feeds me (I don’t go in the big house because Penney acts weird in there). When I go outside, I spend half my time with my bird buddies, Bertie Lee, Gertie, Fancy Pants, and Clarence. We like how cool it is.
Stay out of our coop, dog! The black chickens don’t like me so much.
The rest of the time I spend with my new friends, the Bull calves. It’s SO much fun there! Calf poop is so delicious, and they have a wonderful water bucket just the size for me to cool off my black coat.
Wait, Rip, it’s my turn! Photo by Meghan Land.
On good days, Mama Suna takes me with her to visit my other friends. Sometimes we ride the little bumpy car. Tonight, though, we walked. It was a beautiful night.
Rays!
I chased two of the 18 series cows, but just a little, to remind them of how we used to play when they were babies. Mostly I was good, though, because I wanted to see my friends.
Here are two friends, Big Red and Apache. The horse is jealous, because the hen gets fed first.
I love this place! There are so many smells of cattle dogs! I have many places where I simply must pee. They need to know Vlassic rules…when they aren’t here.
Take that, other dogs.
There are other fun smells here, too. I especially like donkey poop. Mmm. Thanks, Fiona. Sigh, I was disappointed she didn’t get to come out and play. I love making her put her head down and shake it.
I sure love poop. Why does Mama sweep it up?
The other great thing about where my friends live is that they have an even bigger water tub! I like to swim in it, but not when it’s full.
Big Red and I like to drink from it when it’s full!
After all the friends were fed, we went back. I had to investigate this new hay. It looks funny and smells different. Mama said it’s sorghum, whatever that is. I made sure to pee on it, so it won’t smell so new next time I come.
Funny hay. Needs pee.
As we passed the cabin, Copper the dog came outside, so I ran like the wind.
I’m outa here.
I ran and ran. Meanwhile, Mama saw a new cow patty on the road, that had appeared since we came by before.
That cow patty has a head.
As she got closer, she realized it was a turtle crossing the driveway. She told it hello, but for some reason, she did NOT call me over to introduce me! Geez! I’m nice to all the other animals!
Pleased to meet you. You can leave now.
After rolling a bit in some silage (it’s an acquired smell, but I’ve acquired it!), I ran back to Rip, Poop Nugget, and Buster, to see if they’d pooped any more.
We were just digesting over here.
Then, to end the evening right, Lee and the other dogs showed up! We played! Then it rained a little. Not enough, but it made Lee and Suna smile. We need rain, because my pond is gone!
Maybe you know this, and maybe you don’t, but back in the early days of the internet, I was a semi-famous web designer, specializing in sites for people working with breastfeeding mothers and babies. Now, THAT was a career I never would have foreseen (besides not knowing there would BE a World Wide Web, I was pretty sure I would never reproduce. My first love didn’t want children (and never had them, just cats), and I thought they’d slow down my feminist agenda, or something.
Turned out, though, that not only did I like babies quite a lot, doing websites allowed me to stay home and watch them grow, with plenty of time left to support other mothers and babies. And by gosh, I got a career out of the whole deal. That pretty much fit right in with my agenda, after all.
While that career path has dwindled a bit (oh wait, I am still the webmaster for some organizations), my enjoyment of babies has stuck with me. I love the potential. I love watching them change every day (though I haven’t had a chance to do that in a long time), I love watching parents grow and rise up to all the inevitable challenges, or lean on others when those challenges overwhelm.
This was my challenge. No sleep! Lost me a spouse! I wasn’t much fun. Photo by @andreafwagner via Twenty20.
Parenting brought me life-long friends (I have some from 30 years ago, when I first got pregnant and looked up information on online bulletin boards). Now that my friends are grandparenting, I get the joy of watching those relationships develop. It’s really amazing how my friends have been helping their children’s children during the pandemic, ranging from caring for them so the parents can work from home to home-schooling programs on Zoom.
It doesn’t appear that I’ll be a grandparent (I guess if K fathered children, I’d not get to see them, and there are some challenges for D). I guess that’s good for overpopulation. But I’ll miss having the chance to be there for my sons and their partners, and to hold and smell little ones again (yes, I remember there are also bad smells).
This generic newborn stands in for the real one, who I don’t want to plaster all over the internet, since he’s not my child. Photo by @christyhermogenes via Twenty20.
But, other people’s kids aren’t quite so set on not having babies, so I got to be a great aunt by marriage a few days ago. I’m excited, though the pandemic means I only get to see photos of the little guy. I look into his face, with eyes old beyond his age, and see so much potential. He already shows what he might look like when he’s older, with a large mouth, lots of hair, and very expressive eyes. What a wonder, indeed. His young mama is enjoying him, and his grandparents are ridiculously excited, as they should be. I get to enjoy it vicariously, which is better than a kick in the head!
The actual baby. I got permission to share. Isn’t he adorable.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few very scary months in the world, but I’m very glad that I will have a sweet baby boy to distract me and to remind me of the timeless wonder of babies as they grow. May he grow into a world full of peace, love, and kindness.
The Hermits' Rest 