Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall

Reclaiming Mined Land

I wrote this post about reclaiming the strip-mined land at the Alcoa plant near Rockdale, Texas. for the Master Naturalist Blog. I thought you might like it, too. I know this is a controversial topic, though I just wrote what the guy walked about.

Nature Along the El Camino Real

by Sue Ann Kendall

Our June Chapter Meeting speaker was Marty Irwin, who had a long and successful career doing range conservation for Alcoa and other companies who performed strip mining for coal in this area. After Gary Johnson introduced him, Marty shared some pretty fascinating details with us, so I thought I’d summarize them for any who were unable to attend. (I was so busy writing that I didn’t get my usual zillions of blog photos. Oops.)

So, here’s his Facebook picture, appropriately enough, with a large buck.

If I get any facts wrong, I apologize in advance. Also, note that his presentation wasn’t compatible with our laptop, so we all imagined what he was talking about as he went along. Thank goodness he was good at describing.

Mike Conner got his 1,000 volunteer hour milestone pin, too. Congratulations!

View original post 489 more words

Energy Oddity

My energy levels have been changing lately, and I must say I just don’t understand it. Most of my life, I’ve sort of trudged through the day, then got a burst of energy late afternoon through the evening. I always wished I was a “morning person.”

The old me (from our wonderful Shutterstock collection)

My guess is I perpetuated this by arranging my life to suit those proclivities (and I lucked out to have kids that liked to sleep and jobs with flexible hours). Lucky me.

These days, though, I have been feeling a lot of energy throughout the day. I’ve been able to focus more and get a lot of stuff done. I’ll get home from work and marvel at all the things I got done, things I didn’t forget to do, and plans I’ve made for more things to do.

Of course there is a consequence to all this. I’ve been getting pretty darned sleepy by 9 pm, which makes me feel like one of my parents or something. I just run out of steam and have to have a snooze. I often perk back up and can read/watch television a bit later. But I would be a failure on the party scene, for sure.

The dogs, however, are vigilant! Well, at 9:30 they are also snoozing.

What Caused It?

I’ve actually started taking some pro-biotics that have all the B vitamins with them along with chicory and something else to make the gut flora all perky. It’s been a couple of months, and lo and behold, not only is my tummy all happy, but I’ve felt more alert and focused. (It’s by United Naturals, but I don’t want to do a commercial for them; you can look them up.)

The promised weight loss has not happened, but I can focus on eating more helpful things, and that should come along, even though menopause changed my metabolism to be even worse! I think the energy means my metabolism is better. I look forward to getting a lot of walking and yoga in each day, which pleases me.

I think I’ll just revel in all this energy. It’s a gift. It feels good to feel good, even when life has its challenges!

PS

It was a sad day today, as one of my coworkers and a member of my team has his last day today.

We had a nice Indian lunch with him where our whole team got to say goodbye, other than the coworker we had bagels with last week, who couldn’t be with us.

I am glad his new job will be close by, so we can still see each other, and we both spend our weekends up north, so Jon: you can’t get rid of me! Good luck!

Leave Me Alone, Nighttime Patriarchy!

You know how your childhood issues, fears, and old patterns haunt you no matter how hard you try to move past them? (If you don’t, wow, you’re one exceptional human.) That’s certainly a struggle I’ve dealt with my whole life, or at least since I’ve realized you actually might be able to move past such things.

Spiders aren’t my childhood fear, but they make a good representation for scary things

I’ve made great progress in recent years with a lot of my “issues” (thanks to my fine therapist and Brene Brown books). I no longer blame everything that goes wrong in my life on my own shortcomings. I no longer hesitate to speak up when someone in authority makes a proclamation or judges someone in a way I know is wrong. I care much, much less about whether my personal appearance pleases anyone but me…and so on.

I’ve talked about it before, how I’ve managed to get the negative voices in my head to shut the heck up and say nice stuff instead (“Great work, me,” says my internal voice).

Pages: 12

Working on Community

When we first moved to the ranch, I was worried that it would be isolating living so far out here. That’s what Lee, the hermit, wanted. I wanted to have a community to enjoy life with, as well as some peace and quiet. I’m happy to report we are well on our way to a real community out here.

We missed the storms that hit Austin last night, but got cool clouds.

We were relieved to find a place near our friends Sara and Ralph, who warmly welcomed us when we first got here and really helped us set things up. And what would I do without my horse riding companion? Life would not be the same without these folks. We’ve also been lucky to make friends with Cathy, who lived at the cabin when we first arrived, and Tyler, who lives there now and does my snake handling.

When we added Mandi and her family over at Rattlesnake, wow, we could have been happier. They are so helpful in so many ways. One son cares for the horses and hens when I’m in Austin, and another has been helping Ralph with his mowing. Grateful for them.

There’s No Place Like Home?

For some of us, this is really true. I always felt like I should be glued to my hometown, even though I probably will never get to move back to Gainesville. Some folks are more lucky. Lee’s dad was able to buy back a good portion of the farm where he grew up, and got to spend his final days looking out the window at his beloved cattle.

The view Lee’s dad had from his bedroom window.

Lee now owns that farm, but he didn’t grow up there and has sooo many allergies to that part of Texas. But, Lee’s nephew, Chris, inherited the attachment to this land and is now its caretaker, along with his wife and my friend, Kathleen. Chris will never leave this land. For him, there’s no place like home, for certain.

This immense pecan tree is what shaded Lee’s dad’s old trailer (now long gone). Beneath it you see the fig tree that has provided the family with figs for years. I got three cuttings.

Heavy Equipment Happiness

Lee just said something that’s a cautionary truth for anyone thinking of moving out to a ranch:

If you’re going to keep a ranch going, you need to be a mechanic.

Unfortunately, Lee didn’t inherit that gene. What that means is that he has to find someone to fix anything that breaks. And as he points out, you’re at the mercy of their schedule.

Right now, though, thanks to talented friends and professionals, all the equipment is working. Lee’s got all the grass mowed, except the designated wildflower area.

And we’ve been able to use the big ole front-end loader to rearrange the raised beds (he couldn’t mow between them where they were). The dogs enjoyed it, too.

On the other hand, it pisses off the mockingbird family. They keep wanting to nest in the digger arm. You’d think they’d learn!

This standing cypress reseeded and is overshadowing the weeds.

We enjoy working around sunset. Wouldn’t you?

I guess the equipment issues are worth it. We love our home.

Update: Bobcat Lair

I’m in a car, so I have time for a few updates. Over at the Austin house, it’s been a good spring, thanks to all the rain. I’m really happy that all the perennial plants we got last year made it and have bloomed.

Another plant that surprised us in its survival is Anita’s monkey paw plant.

The Texas mountain laurel just had two blossoms, but it’s pretty small still. It’s growing now! Too bad I didn’t get photos.

I was really happy to see the Althea bush blossoming. It’s a beautiful plant. I love bicolor leaves, and the pink flowers have been great. It looks good all year.

Continue reading “Update: Bobcat Lair”

Chickens Can NOT Catch a Break

I’m beginning to think my poor chickens are living under a black cloud, are haunted, or broke a mirror sometime in their past. They really just can’t catch a break.

Here’s a rat snake that was found in a shopping cart in Midland. So friendly.

You may recall that just last Saturday, I found an adult Texas rat snake curled up happily in the henhouse, with three eggs embedded inside him or her. That snake was removed, so I was really thinking all was well.

Nope. Wednesday night, Seth, the chicken tending volunteer, got scared witless when he saw TWO snakes in the hen house. He didn’t stop to try to identify them. For someone who lived in the boonies most of his life, he’s not real “ranchy.”

Here’s a cute spider to take your mind off snakes.

He called his mom, who told me. I said, hey, remember Tyler who lives right there? He can take care of snakes. Then I heard nothing.

I asked Mandi how it all went, and she said she wasn’t sure. He wasn’t talking about it. Wow. Nature is not kind to that boy (age 19). But I do understand that many people have big issues with snakes, even non-venomous ones.

So, I asked Tyler, who IS ranchy, what the heck had happened. He said the two snakes were the same kind and size as last week.

What, are they a family? If so, one of them ought to tell the others that the fun times at our coop don’t have happy endings.

Mostly, though, I feel bad for those poor remaining 8 chickens. We took care of one set of predators, only to be joined by another one. I think my friend Mike and I need to get working on the new and improved coop, not just talking about it.

Book Report: The Secret Wisdom of Nature

Yay! It’s time for another naturalist-centered book report. This book, which IS about the entire earth, has the extra-lengthy title of:

The Secret Wisdom of Nature: Trees, Animals, and the Extraordinary Balance of All Living Things – Stories from Science and Observation
Buy it here!

It’s by Peter Wohlleben, the German forester who wrote The Inner Life of Animals, which I reviewed recently. It’s the third volume in a trilogy that started with The Hidden Life of Trees, which I promise to finish and review, too.

You’ve just got to like Wohlleben, because he does not give a hoot if others think his ideas are not quite “scientific” enough or if he’s personifying non-human entities. Nope, he just calls things as he sees them, and seeing is his specialty. He doesn’t just look around his forest or anywhere else he visits, he carefully observes from the macro level to the micro level, and from the far past to the present. He doesn’t hesitate to ponder about the future, either. To me, this is the kind of teacher we all need, because he inspires all his readers to think beyond stereotypes and actually pay attention to what’s going on in front of them.

All the scientists out there will also appreciate that he backs up his observations with recent scholarship and provides us with a hefty bibliography for further exploration.

Why is this important?

As I was reading this book, I began to get a sinking feeling of concern. Wohlleben chronicles all sorts of ways humans have interfered with the interconnected web of life on this planet, and how the consequences are very far reaching. Changing the types of trees in European forests meant some organisms had nowhere to live, while others could march in and find new homes (or eat new things). Not having enough shade in the forest also meant huge differences.

Self Aware Means Self Care

Last week I was in a mental vortex, tizzy, or something. I’m so glad I was aware that something was amiss, and that the only person who could do anything about it was ME.

So, what kind of self care can I do? Can you do it, too?

Exercise

I realized yesterday that I hadn’t done any yoga in over two weeks, maybe three. Between work getting hectic and taking a week off, I was feeling sluggish and stiff.

I’ve gone to the class at work twice this week, and I can really tell it, both physically and mentally. I’m a lot more centered and my muscles feel well used, but good.

Continue reading “Self Aware Means Self Care”