I took a break

I’m cutting down my work hours when I can, which meant I had today off. I’d planned to go to a conference but was feeling just too hermit-like to do it. So I stayed home, talked to friends on Zoom, observed nature in the birding hut, and went into a decluttering/cleaning frenzy. Then, I actually cooked a meal! Go Suna.

I’ve been very pleased with the increased number of species at the bird feeding stump. I caught a White-crowned on it today, and also saw Tufted Titmice and a Harris’s Sparrow today. I only heard the first Harris’s yesterday, so this was all great news for me.

My most fun morning visitor was a big female North American Wheel Bug (Arilus cristatus). She buzzed over and spent some time investigating my coffee cup.

Then she flew over and investigated me. She was quite curious, tilting her head and wagging her antennas around.

These are such interesting insects, one of the largest true bugs in North America. They have a big stinging proboscis that sucks the innards out of soft insects. Luckily, they are generally unaggressive around people. It turns out that they aren’t very well studied, so I hope some energetic young entomologist takes them up as a thesis topic.

I remember the first time I saw a wheel bug. It was soon after I moved to Texas, and it startled me as I was looking at magnolia flowers. It confirmed my initial opinion that Texas has a lot of weird wildlife. I’m glad I kept learning about the various shapes and sizes of insects here!

The Sandhill Cranes are still flying over. I tried to ignore them and not get up and look, but, well, they’re so cool.

The horses are happy, because we got enough rain last week to start a little bit of grass growing. Dusty completely ignored the hay, today—even Lee’s brother noticed it on his daily walk. Apache seemed more interested in the old hay on the ground, taking a good nap, then rolling in it before feeding time. It was fun to watch.

In other parts of life things are okay (since I neither needed Microsoft software nor had to fly today). Lee has all the funds ready to close on the New Mexico house, which will happen Monday before Thanksgiving. I guess we will holiday in the new place.

We found out the land next door is owned by the people behind us, so no one will build on it. Whew. Maybe they’ll sell us one of the lots to expand the house or add an RV garage. So many ideas, all of which cost money, so I predict we’ll just enjoy the house in its original state for a while.

And we got insurance. That was hard, thanks to the area’s fondness of natural disasters. But it’s affordable! Score! There are so many steps involved in buying property.