Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall

My Favorite Thing about Me

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

I didn’t have too much to write about today, other than that horses are cute and I have a new favorite light fixture. So, let’s find out what my favorite thing about me might be.

But first, look at the fun Apache and Rylie (probably not spelled right) had today during warmups.

Okay, so, answer the question, Suna. And don’t say you like something except for this that or the other. No self put-downs allowed.

Oh, second, hey look at this light fixture. It looks like planets made of rock crystals.

I used to always say my favorite thing about myself were my feet. They were not too big or small, medium width, and had nice toes. Now they are more mature feet with mature person issues. So, nope, it’s not my feet.

Sorry, feet, you also always have fire ant bites.

All right. I’ll refrain from pointing out the obvious negatives for this, as instructed, and declare my favorite thing about myself is how I can empathize with others, care deeply about people who don’t care back, and always see our commonalities as humans. That boils down to one concept but I don’t have the right word for it.

Take a seat while I add unnecessary explanations, as I tend to do.

Note that I can now set boundaries, so my character feature is one I can now embrace without fear of hurting myself. I’m not going to run out and embrace the toxic people in my life, but I can try to understand them and care, from a distance.

They can’t hurt me, even though I may appear vulnerable, just like today’s maize calligrapher fly can’t sting me, even though it looks like a wasp.

Super Sensitive Suna, as I labeled myself on Facebook today, can take the occasional sadness and hurt that comes from all that caring, but it’s worth it. I just have to expect to have the occasional down periods. It’s a small price to pay to keep cherishing my favorite thing about myself.

What? I Can’t Hear You!

I’m taking a break from Facebook, since the fallout on a post I thought was not too controversial turned out to incite strong partisan feelings among my friends. I respect their rights to debate, and find areas of agreement with each, but I’m so damned hypersensitive that I had to take a break. I also snoozed a few very nice people for a while. So, I’m no longer listening to the fallout until I’m up to it again. I do want to hear all views, but I also want to remain mentally stable.

But I can still blog and write on my Substack, which is where I rant. I’ve been trying to listen to birdsong my porch or birding slab, but I’m thwarted. There is an incessant throbbing sound echoing through the trees. It fills most of the spectrogram on Merlin Bird ID.

The faint rhythmic lines are a Cardinal.

It’s cicadas. I can hardly hear myself think for them. Once they start up around 9 am, they’re in all the trees every minute unless it rains. My best birding the past couple of days has been right after a storm, when birds have a feeding frenzy thanks to flying insects, and I guess the cicadas need to dry off.

Only the loudest and closest birds pierce through the wall of cicada sound. I do get a lot of House Sparrow chirps. That’s because their nest is above me (to the right; I’m not putting chairs under their extra-decorative nests.

Mrs Sparrow, who alternates with Mr Sparrow in insect deliveries.

These mofos are everywhere. When not feeding, they’re sitting around pooping on our outdoor furniture, grills (which are covered), etc. They’re not native, so we could dispose of them, but nope. I just make sure they stay out of the new screened porch.

Speaking of our lovely new porch, the Barn Swallow eggs haven’t even hatched yet, so who knows when we will be able to shut the door. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t quite so dang law abiding and could remove the nests.

I do have a bit better luck with birds on my walks, where there are some areas a bit farther from the cicadas. Plus, there are always good old eyeballs for spotting birds! Yesterday I found a Mississippi Kite and today a Green Heron.

Blurry, but I could tell what it was from colors and call.

So, between traipsing through mud to tend to horses and listening to birds, my last free week before my consulting gig starts is full. I also keep crocheting, and now April and May are connected on my temperature blanket, and June is caught up. The nice KnitPicks lady said that if I do not get yarn by ten working days to call them rather than patiently waiting a month like I did. I am now warned.

I’ll leave you with bugs and flowers. Please send healing thoughts to everyone who’s affected by world events, and listen hard, even when it’s difficult to hear.

It’s too Painful

Living in a place where two incompatible world views exist and where each world view sees the other as filled with stupid, hateful liars has become almost too painful for me. I hate being able to see how strongly each faction sees itself as right and true and the others as blind.

I don’t think my own beliefs and values even matter. Those of us who want to live in harmony with our friends and loved ones, all of them, will be the first to be caught in the crossfire when it all falls to pieces. We’re just expendable wimps.

It’s like cats versus dogs, and I’m the rabbit they both want to eliminate.

Today people I admire were vilifying people like me for daring to express their beliefs in public. These weren’t extremists, just who I thought were regular people with different views from the other people I admire.

It’s painful to witness. Time for me to retreat and try to regroup. I won’t heal completely or forget how frightened people act towards the “other” but I need to regain my incentive for participating in the world outside my little ranch.

Later, haters.

Concerned

I have a bad feeling about tomorrow. I care about people on all sides of the national and international strife right now, and my love for them trumps any cause.

For anyone under armed attack, I wish you safety.

For anyone protesting, I wish you safety and peace.

For those instructed to control others, I wish you safety and good judgment.

For the powerless and afraid, I wish you safety and protection.

May we find a path to a world of reason, communication, compassion, and peace.

Yes, I said the T-word in a sentence.

Rainy Rainy Floody Floody

Gee whiz. Last night 8.5” of rain fell at the Hermits’ Rest. That’s the second most since we’ve been keeping records (2011). It was wet this morning.

It’s rare for water to flow over our driveway, which is the dam that created the front pond. It did last night, though, and much of our road base washed away.

This is worse than it looks. The ruts are deep.

The pond got the highest I’ve ever seen it, but with the water flowing quickly through our big culvert, it quickly lowered once rain stopped.

At left you can see how high the water got. The little trees in the water show the normal “full” line.

I walked down the road to see how Walker’s Creek looked. I’m used to it being out of its banks, but it was way over the road and there was a large dead tree in the middle of the bridge. That’s some strong water.

Looking at the fence on the right you can see how much higher the water was!

I talked to the guys who put the sign out. They said they’d move the tree when the water receded, but we think the neighbor down the road did it.

I thought about all the birds and turtles and hoped they were okay. I knew the frogs were happy, because I could hear at least four kinds.

The creek is usually at the far tree line.

I’m always fascinated by how the water drains from the property next to ours down an arroyo, to be joined by runoff from the cultivated field across the road, which becomes our mighty stream that joins the creek eventually.

Our back pond also has runoff feeding into it. When it’s full, the water goes to the pond behind our woods, then helps flood the floodplain field. No wonder it looks like we live on a lake when it rains a lot. All this drainage will start after receiving two inches of rain. Eight inches creates huge masses of water heading along until it reaches the Little River, which is also joined by Big Elm and Little Elm Creek. I’m guessing all their water has made the Brazos River pretty impressive right now.

Here you can see Walker’s Creek, which goes by my house. Above it is Pond Creek, which is a different watershed. Our creek is joined by Terry Branch just before going into Big Elm Creek. The creek that joins Big Elm is Little Elm. Big Elm joins the Brazos quite a ways east of this map.

It was interesting that the talk at tonight’s Master Naturalist meeting was watersheds. How water flows is mysterious but it works! Soon the creeks will all be back to normal, and at some point, Walker’s Creek will go through another dry period. I hope not too soon.

Outflow from the pond. The new concrete did its job.

Ooh, in other excitement, I finally finished May on the temperature blanket. I sure was glad to receive new black yarn!

May. Mostly warm with just a few days over 95° (the wine color).

Selecting a Seasonal Preference

What is your favorite season of year? Why?

It’s a good thing there’s a prompt to answer today, because action around here was fairly limited. So, I’ll dwell on my favorite season and you can think about yours, and maybe even share it in the comments! Why not? I’ll share some pretty nature sights from today, in the unofficial season of late spring humidity.

They took the forms off our concrete slabs. Whee.

When I lived in Illinois, I could never choose between spring and autumn as my favorite seasons. Crabapple trees, spring bulbs, peonies, and lilacs made the world so beautiful up there. But in autumn there were the orange, red, and yellow deciduous trees that contrasted so beautifully with the dark tree trunks (or light, with birch trees). It was beautiful in Champaign-Urbana, all year round. That’s right. I liked winter as long as it was above 0°F and there wasn’t an ice storm.

Simple sunflower and resident crab spider.

Here in Texas, I only have one season I don’t enjoy, and that’s summer. At least my new job will force me to stay indoors during the worst of the heat. I always feel sad for the animals, especially the chickens, and the dying grass on ground with huge cracks in it from drought always looks apocalyptic. I don’t need more reminders of apocalypses. Plus there are the fewest birds here in summer.

It’s hard not to like spring in this area, with all the wildflowers, birds, and butterflies. I hope we still have them in the future. This year was pretty bad for all of them, thanks to an unusually dry winter. And sadly, spring always reminds me that summer will be here soon. Not to mention how many allergies spring brings (but I appreciate the plants’ need to reproduce).

At this point in my life, autumn is my favorite time of year, even though it often arrives late. I can take long walks, once it cools off, and more birds show up as they migrate south. I love the smell of fallen leaves, which also make it easier to see wildlife. The only problem with that time of year is that it’s so busy! There are conference and events and trips…

Winter here is surprisingly great, though. It’s not that cold except for a few days each year, and there are so many entertaining birds to enjoy. Campgrounds are more empty, too. And I never sweat. I hate all that sweating in the other seasons. (I rarely sweated until menopause finally happened and I’m still not used to all that dripping.)

Mockingbird nest in the little tree we planted in the front yard. What a quality nest!

I’m not confident that I’ve answered the question. Let’s hope I’m much more with it tomorrow.

Pearl crescent. There are so many crescents.

Resting Truly Helps

The people who tell you to get rest and drink a lot of fluids when you’re feeling sick know what they’re talking about. After a couple of days of a sore throat and congestion I gave in to the fact that not only Lee is under the weather. I caught the latest mystery virus.

We spent all day under the beautiful storm clouds.

Once I accepted the situation I decided to be kind to myself and rest today. Tarrin fit me in for my riding lesson later in the week, so I didn’t push myself to do all the prep work and riding that entails. My only scheduled activity was a Zoom meeting for Annual Meeting field trip planning, which was easy to do sitting down.

This Hackberry Emperor was on the porch, so I didn’t exert myself to photograph it.

It helped that it rained a while, so I just wrote stuff and drank hot beverages. That was most of the day.

I did spy on the Barn Swallow nest. Still just eggs. Wonder where a Guinea fowl feather came from?

Admittedly, I’m still not as good at loafing as I was when younger, so I did take two long walks to enjoy the pleasant weather after the rain.

I thought I was taking it easy, but I got 39 minutes of exercise and 10,000 or so steps in. Plus, I cooked dinner, an easy one, but still…

These views helped me forget feeling sick.

I’m not very good at resting. And I’m nowhere near as sick as Lee, who’s still having chills and congestion and all that. Thank you, immune system, for being so hardy! Combined with my somewhat restful day, I may already be feeling better.

I saw this while convalescing on the new porch watching the sparrows flying in and out.

All in all, it was a perfect day to watch clouds and a perfect evening to watch the Strawberry Moon. Days like this make living in the moment easier.

Random Goodness – It’s Great!

I didn’t write anything yesterday, because I couldn’t think of a great theme or deep content, but this morning I realized that having a day that was just good and full of pleasant interactions was worth writing about.

I also did my nails tie dye. Oh happy day.

I guess there was one vaguely exciting thing that happened. We got a new gate opening mechanism on our front gate, because Lee was unhappy with how the previous one kept coming out of adjustment. The new one is really cool, though, and is made from a horseshoe and some chain. Once the welding machine gets some oxygen, it will even have something that helps it auto-close.

This is a lot easier to use, and quieter.

The excitement came when a welding spark ignited the long grass by the gate (mowing has been delayed by rains and husbandly illness). I saw it and went to get the conveniently long hose over to it, but in a fit of incompetence, it took me three tries to get there. First I had to go back and find a hard surface to turn the spray attachment on (it’s old and stuff), then there was a hose kink, and finally, I realized the hose actually wasn’t on. But, I did get there faster than the other hose, so I got to put it out. Now we have a nicely edged spot which will come back all green and pretty.

I enjoyed the new porch a lot, and was impressed at the good job that’s been done preparing my birding station for concrete. It’s going to be so cute, and we even have a little auto-waterer to turn into a bird bath out there!

It’s got plastic and rebar, ready for concrete.

The rest of yesterday was very pleasant. I got some work done on my temperature blanket, which has been delayed due to the package getting lost in the mail. The replacement arrived, and I’m up to the middle of May. Also pleasant was a nice visit from our friends Mike and Martha. We went swimming and then Martha made some spaghetti for dinner. Our weekly dinners have fallen by the wayside, and we need to pick it back up and try to drag Anita over (I haven’t heard from her except on Facebook since April! She’s a hard worker).

I can’t resist a purple flower, even if it is extra prolific Ruellia.

It rained over an inch last night, which made us happy. The front pond/tank is almost back to full capacity, and if we’re lucky, it will rain more this week. Now, the rain put the next “exciting” event in jeopardy, the pouring of the concrete. Nonetheless, it cleared up enough this morning for the big truck to show up and start pouring. Cleverly, it pulled into the RV parking space and could dispense concrete out that way.

I guess the highlight of the rest of the day will be watching cement dry. That’s okay with me. I’m enjoying every moment of not working and trying to savor the small things in life, like watching the horses and looking for bugs.

Typical arrangement. Everyone clustered but Apache, who’s on lookout.

Last night, Mike and I talked a bit about our Buddhism practice and whether we were doing a lot of living in the moment. We agreed we are doing better than we once did. That’s why they call it practice, I guess! In any case, I’m pretty content right now if I just focus on home and friends.

Zoo Pictures

As I promised yesterday, Lee and I went to a zoo today. First we spent the night last night in a blissfully dark and quiet Home2 Suite in Waco. The hotel was a little odd in that their breakfast oatmeal was in reality gravy for biscuits. I’m sure glad I didn’t spoon it out and sprinkle brown sugar on it!

Still, I enjoyed a morning walk in the working class neighborhood, where I managed to hear some birds and met some dogs that didn’t particularly want me there. But, hey, I found some weeds to photograph, too. That let Lee have his morning alone time!

We eventually went to the Cameron Park Zoo, which is in a beautiful riverside location near downtown. It’s worth a visit. I’m sort of glad we didn’t go when we’d originally planned, because now we were able to see the new exhibit of African penguins. They were cute, though many were shy.

I had two exhibits I really liked. One was a lot of fish native to Texas, including paddlefish, gars, and extra cute rays. There was too much glare and too many kids running around to get photos. Those big fish were mighty majestic, though.

The other exhibit I enjoyed was the Texas shore birds. It was great to get close-up views of the birds I usually see at a distance. They’d just been fed, so many were eating fish. A couple others were carrying around sticks. Perhaps they were building nests. Forgive all the Roseate spoonbill pictures. They were so pretty.

There were many other birds to see. I was surprised how many I knew from watching nature shows. Some were spectacular, like the bustard. All were fun to watch.

Of course, there were other animals at this zoo. It’s a fairly good sized one. Here are a few that I enjoyed.

I also enjoyed the people, especially kids. We watched one boy, around 3, dragging his grandmother from exhibit to exhibit saying he wanted to see more animals. He was thrilled at each one and knew what they all were without being told. I just wanted to hug him.

Bald Eagle habitat, surrounded by vultures. .

There was also a little girl who bravely fed the giraffe, to her parents’ surprise. The best part was on her way out, she grabbed some of the romaine lettuce for herself. If it’s good enough for the giraffe…

Chinaberry tree. Lots of nonnative plants were around.

One thing I liked about the design of the Cameron Park Zoo was that it was quite shady, either additional shade canopies where needed. And it seemed like each area had an indoor air conditioned exhibit to cool down in. That was good planning. And wow, it was clean. It didn’t smell like poop, which many zoos do.

If you live around Waco or visit, be sure to go visit this zoo and maybe hit the mammoth dig site, too.

Three Weeks of Retirement Left

I’ll try to get as much horse riding and swimming pool lounging in as I can for the rest of the month, because I accepted the offer on the job I was debating and it starts June 30.

The Pacific Time hours will be a bit of a challenge, because I’ve never worked in a time zone later than mine, but since it’s relatively cooler in the mornings in the hot months here, I may find doing horse stuff and other ranch chores more pleasant. I can adjust!

I’ll still have time to look for birds at my birding station, which was sited today.

Theoretically, I’ll retire again in 6 months or so. I did like the main interviewer a lot, so I think I’ll enjoy making a few more handouts and answering a lot more questions about project and portfolio management software. I’m sure glad I didn’t entirely flush that knowledge from my brain in March.

Looks like plenty of space for rainwater capture here.

In the meantime, Lee and I are taking a short drive around our area, first to close on a property sale in no-longer-scenic Cedar Park, then spending the night in Waco and going to the zoo we didn’t get to go to when storms came after Lee’s canceled jury duty. Just some couple time.

I may be a little slower, but I get there.

It’s a nice reward for making it through all the interviews and paperwork. I’d suspected they’d choose someone young and energetic. Well, my friends keep telling me I’m energetic, so I’m passing as the elder statesman energy bunny.