Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall

Hay Hay! The Horses Are Happy

Gratitude was in the eyes of all the pasture dwellers today. They had not been at all thrilled that a round bale of hay had been unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the entrance to their pens. They were equally irritated at the orange tractor sharing space with them.

Correct tractor and pens, but not the actual location.

Mysteriously, a front tire popped off its rim as Lee drove it into the horse area, intending to drop the hay bale in the pasture where the Powers That Be (horses) prefer it to be. So, they stayed there for two weeks awaiting rescue until today, when strong and clever men from DeWitt County arrived to perform tractor tire magic and get a new bale in the correct place.

I’m pretty sure the horses are also enjoying the pleasantly cool and sunny weather, too. They always charm me after they eat, checking empty dishes in case anyone left any tasty supplements. It’s one of those times when you just enjoy the moment.

I hope you had a couple of moments in your day when you could just pause to enjoy the moment.

Despite Unusual Weather, I Learned

This morning was just gorgeous. I went out to do my morning birding and discovered I was overdressed. It was sunny and comfortable the whole time I was out, and I was greatly entertained by Yellow-rumped Warblers flitting around.

I went inside to eat and do some office stuff. When I went back to pick up my phone, the wind had completely shifted and it was cloudy and at least ten degrees cooler. I added my puffy vest and an overshirt, which enabled me to feed horses and groom Apache comfortably. He is so hairy this time of year. He was nice and warm.

We made it to Tarrin’s and while it was very brisk and breezy, we still had a good lesson. Both Apache and I are learning a lot, slowly but surely. I appreciate that he’s willing to put in the effort to learn with me. It’s been such a long road of figuring out how to make him comfortable and as healthy as possible while working with my confidence issues. If we are never going to be fancy and sophisticated, I’m okay, because we have developed such a comfortable horse/human relationship. That was my goal. The relationship. The rest is just fun and refinement. My horse is such a comfort end encouraging presence for me.

Clint and Connie would like to interject that they also provide joy and comfort.

I was talking to Lee and my horse friend Jo after I got Apache back to the trailer (he was unnerved by their giant, shiny trailer, but we coped). We said how chilly it has gotten, and I said it’s lots better on horseback. Lee chimed in that it was like having a living radiator. That’s fluffy ole Apache, for sure.

The Jeep has an ancient wreath on it. The scary trailer is in the background.

For sure, I’m glad I was able to stay indoors the rest of the day and out of the wind. At least I got enough exercise today and had the energy to cook some warm food.

This is baked sweet potatoes and onions. My weird idea of dinner.

And the dogs are calmer. Harvey hurts, though. Carlton has been overly friendly.

I’m another white and hairy animal providing warmth.

Good Day for Horsing, Less Good Day for Dogs

This is yesterday’s blog that I didn’t feel like writing last night. One reason may be that I’m so tired and lacking energy. I really have to push myself to get moving and do things that I was eager to do not that long ago, like walks, long horse rides, chores, etc. I’m guessing it’s my brain, not my body that’s the problem. I got lots of tests done recently, so I know it’s not my thyroid. I just may be in a slow cycle.

But I did drag myself out of the house to attend the most recent horse show for my discipline. I’m just not up for participating (Not Apache’s problem, it’s mine). I helped Tarrin out as the scribe while she was judging the show. I’d never done that before.

It was lots of fun to help out. I’m glad I got a chance to write down Tarrin’s comments on each horse and rider pair. It helps me understand the comments I get. Plus it was interesting to see how each pair had strengths and weaknesses.

One horse was a bit nerved out and spooky, but his rider did a wonderful job coping and getting him back on track. These skills take work!

And the little kids were both fun to walk. The tiny one just bounced around on an older horse celebrating his last show. But her mom did a great job keeping her focused, mostly. One time her mom told her to look up, and she obeyed literally, looking to the sky.

All she wanted were her ribbons and her prize (that she chose). She declared that it is for her breakfast. Aww.

The other young one I’ve been enjoying for a few years, and she’s really developing as a rider on her upgraded horse. I also enjoyed how well both she and the horse coped when George the teen kitten jumped up to try to share her snack.

I’m glad I got to go. That was good horse time.

I have no clue why this didn’t format right.

The dog stuff last night was hard on us. Harvey just isn’t the dog he used to be, but he remains grumpy when messed with. Apparently Penney messed with him (under my chair in tight quarters) and when he snapped at her face, she chomped on his front leg. Poor Carlton just fled as fast as he could.

Her right eye has a cut right next to it. Eek.

In the end, while Penney has a cut near her eye, Harvey has a sad looking leg and is still limping today. Lee has some antibiotics for him, thankfully.

You can see one cut of three on his left leg, which he is favoring.

I just hate to see them hurting each other even if I know it happens occasionally with dogs. Harvey just always starts it and ends up injured. Sigh.

I Did Something Social

I’m proud of myself that I left the house to be social, not for a horse or Master Naturalist event. I used to do that more often, but I got convinced that the whole town didn’t like me, so I stayed home except for lunch each week and when Anita and I used to have coffee. I’ve been down to just lunch, Master Naturalist, and riding lessons this year, even though I’m no longer concerned about anyone’s opinions. I’m just not feeling social.

But I did join the group of more social folks tonight to listen to a friend’s band play. It was nice of Pamela to invite me along! I enjoyed the music and the folks we sat with, too.

It’s fun being in the social hub of Cameron and watching everyone greet each other and mingle. It all seems so darned friendly, especially when you’re blissfully ignorant of any local drama. Heck, I even got greeted and hugged—made me feel like part of the community! All in all, a good evening.

Ooh! I almost forgot to share that right after I turned onto our county road, our local Big Cat sauntered across the road, disappearing into the woods. That was exciting to me, and gave me a good story to tell Pamela. And now Alfred has something more interesting to bark at tonight.

They have such long tails! Photo from Pexels.

Still Crafty

What’s nice about having a needlework project that lasts all year is that you don’t have to figure out what to make next or buy a lot of yarn (I have bought a little, but mostly from friends). And what’s nice about my Temperature Blanket projects is that every week and month is different, so I get to see new patterns emerge. But it’s relaxing at the same time—I can do it and watch television, etc.

As you can see, I finished November tonight. At the end of each month you have to make a lot of black squares and do the border. Then you have to join blocks together.

You can see October had some hot days, but cooled down towards the end, while November had much cooler days, as indicated by greens and even blues in the center. That last day, with the green outside didn’t get out of the 40s, which is cold for here.

It’s still chilly and damp, as evidenced by how the mama and baby cattle were huddled up by the trees this morning.

I keep thinking I’ll be tired of temperature blankets. This is my third using the same colors for the temperatures. I like the size of this year’s. It actually makes a good lap blanket already. I guess we will see what I come up with.

And I can see what I’m working on with my newly functional quirky old lady glasses

Maybe tomorrow will be fascinating! Or sunny. Until then, knit on through your individual crises!

A Bit of a Lull

I didn’t blog yesterday because it was just a normal day doing normal things. Today was similar. It’s been cooler, like normal December weather, but I have appropriate clothing.

And the ridiculously early sunsets are pretty.

I did have a brief walk this morning because I wanted to see what was going on next door. Our former ranch property is now unmistakably not ours. That’s a darned nice entry!

So, other than that I’ve worked, painted some rocks, crocheted the rest of November on my temperature blanket, picked up my new glasses that are now the correct prescription, and wow! I shortened my nails!

No rock photos. Some are gifts. All are rather amateurish. Instead, you can have a cute photo of Carlton being a circle dog. Lee’s lap is never empty when it’s chilly and rainy outside!

I’ll try to come up with something philosophical or some deep thoughts tomorrow. Heck, I can’t cut my nails and get new glasses every day to make for fascinating blogging, right? Maybe we should view it as good that I feel well enough and the world hasn’t upset me enough to make for more interesting blogging.

A dull day is like a flower in winter: welcome

Yes, good attitude, Suna! Lulls are just fine.

It’s Cold So It Must Be December

I realize we had an earlier cold snap, but the front that came through last night (all the way to Rockport/Fulton) looks like it wants to stick around. I can’t complain, because we got at least a little rain at the ranch (I will know more tomorrow). It looks like maybe more rain is coming to replenish the water table.

It rained last night, but wasn’t as windy at Goose Island. I was able to take one fairly pleasant walk that was only moderately cold. Since the wind was less, I could use Merlin, and identified two more life list birds! One I saw pretty well, a White-tailed Kite. The other was a Short-Billed Dowitcher, which I can’t tell from a Dunlin or Long-billed Curlew. I need to go back to the sanctuary in Port Aransas where they are all together so I can compare.

All sorts of fun birds were out, even a Palm Warbler and a very persistent Yellowthroat, so while I waited on IT to fix something at work, I went back to the pier. It was getting colder, but I enjoyed seeing some cannonball jellies, oystercatchers, very loud Caspian Terns, and so many loons. The highlight, though, was when I realized the slapping noises I heard were dozens of fish jumping out of the water! I’ve always enjoyed it since I was a kid watching mullets jump in the canals in South Florida.

After I got some work done, we drove home with no major issues (hurray) in light rain. Ooh, on our way out of the park, a gorgeous fox crossed the road in front of us, turned to look for a few seconds, then quietly disappeared into the brush. What a great farewell!

I had time once we got home to do my beginning-of-the-month tasks, like tallying the birds at the ranch for November. We had 110 species, which I find pretty darned impressive. I’ve slowed down with new species, which was only one. Of course, my mind is a blank…but you can see the list right here.

I still have to tally up the bird sanctuary list, which I hope to do tomorrow or at least later this week. I did bring the porch plants inside, just in case it freezes. Ah. It’s December!

That Windblown Look Isn’t Fun to Get

Last night the wind blew so hard that I felt like I was on a boat again, but this time the boat was in a major squall—not a typhoon but pretty bad.

Nonetheless, I got up early so I could go on a birding walk with a man named Kelly, who’s recently moved here in Rockport, who really knows his stuff. I was glad that Bernice, who works at the park office, mentioned it to me. But whoa, the temperature in the 50s, combined with cloudy skies and biting winds, made for mighty unpleasant circumstances.

I’m as cold as I look, and glad for the borrowed hat.

We started out on the big pier near our site, where nothing blocked the wind. I was glad for the railings and that I didn’t bring the big camera! We did see some interesting birds, though it was hard to see them well due to shaking hands holding the binoculars.

Mercifully, Kelly took us away and we went to the jetty I visited yesterday, when it was balmy at just slightly cloudy. There were some gorgeous Roseate Spoonbills flying around, and I have to tell you all that pinkness flying around with the dark gray background was striking, even in the wind. I was too cold to take pictures, so use your imagination.

We then caravanned back over to the Whooping Cranes, where Bernice and I got to see some flying overhead and whooping! We were like two little kids in our excitement! We no longer cared about the cold and were very happy to share our joy with others who were there. The birders here are very collegial.

While that was all fun, I had gotten a chill and didn’t get myself warm, despite tea and a warm meal, until I’d had a little nap in bed. Yow. Still, I dragged myself back outside in the afternoon, and went on a walk around the trail in the other part of Goose Island State Park.

Ooh, they have nice, large campsites with large trees in that part of the park. I enjoyed a relatively wind-free stroll through a coastal oak woodland full of beautiful understory plants like sweet bay, wax myrtle, and beautyberry. I felt a lot better when I got back to the motorhome.

I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to on this trip, so we will be back. I really like it here. At least there are birders in enough numbers to balance out the air boaters and duck hunters. And seafood!

We waited to leave until tomorrow to avoid traffic today. I’ll figure out how get some work in tomorrow. There will be lots of time before we leave.

Birds, Butterflies and Bliss

Yesterday was a lot of fun,but it tired me out so I fell asleep and didn’t have a chance to blog. Sorry about that. I also took hundreds and hundreds of pictures. It seems I will only share a few.

Lee took this with the Canon EOS Rebel T7 and the macro lens.

In the morning I walked over to the jetty near where we are staying at Goose Island State Park. There I was delighted to see many different kinds of birds, especially herons and egrets. I enjoyed watching a tricolored heron and a snowy egret having a little battle over some kind of morsel. Those are some beautiful birds.

One of the cutest sights I saw was a little group of Dunlins, which are shorebirds and a new lifer for me! They were all huddled together with their little heads tucked under their wings like they were trying to get a nap in before something was supposed to happen. I did finally get one picture of one of them with its head up and it’s such a beautiful little round brown birds. Of course, there were others, too. Check it out!

Over in the marshy area there were many egrets. I saw a beautiful little blue heron, many great egrets and a ruffly looking great blue heron.

There were also ibises. There were a number of white ibises, but the most amazing part were the juvenile White Ibises, which are gorgeous brown and white little speckled birds. Well they’re actually big birds. I really like some of the pictures I got of themwith the brownish foliage all around them, I think that’s very artistic.

Later in the day, Lee and I got in the Jeep and drove around to find more birds. The first place we went was the famous big tree that is part of this park.

We weren’t there very long however because Park staff told us that there were a whole lot of whipping cranes and sandhill cranes together right around the corner so we sort of flew off to go see those running right past my friend, Cindy and her husband. Oops.

I was watching you like a hawk, says the Osprey.

The cranes were beautiful as always, and it was very nice to see the sandhill cranes right next to the whooping cranes to compare their size and coloring. It makes it a lot easier to remember, which is which.

They were joined by some lovely Roseate Spoonbills, and you can’t complain about pink birds ever. We met and talked to a few people and enjoyed that as well and took some pictures of extremely friendly seagulls.

After that, we made a fruitless trip over to where the great blue heron rookery is forgetting the fact that it is not great blue Heron breeding season so there weren’t any great blue Heron there I did see a Caracara, Osprey, and some other birds. Of course, the trees are still beautiful, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

We drove down the road a little bit and found a very nice place called the Linda S.Castro Nature Sanctuary, where there were so many butterflies. It was rivaling the national butterflies center. I’m not kidding. We found a lot of butterflies mostly Gulf Fritillaries and southern whites. (Golf rivalries, golf ferries, golf fiddle Aries—I would like to point out that the dictation software does not understand “Gulf Fritillaries).

This is cool. The fruit of the scarletfruit passionflower

There were lots of paths through some beautiful native plants and we got some good pictures of the scenery around that sanctuary. The people who made it did a very good job and it’s quite a nice place to go. I recommend it to anyone even though it’s sort of hiding we met a nice couple (the guy is a Master Naturalist) there and talked to them about different places to go and look at birds and plants and I think they’re gonna have a good time, the rest of their visit. Everyone is so dang friendly here.

We then headed over to one final place which is the thule sanctuary. I went there before with Linda Jo and Ann and it was a nice place to walk around though. There weren’t very many birds. I got a lot of plant photos and Lee got some very good ones using the macro lens.

By that time, we were tired of walking around and looking at birds and plants so we went to find some food. after all it was our anniversary and we needed a nice anniversary dinner. We found a nice place on a bay next to a harbor we sat outside to eat and got to watch many, many birds while we were waiting for our food, including belted kingfishers, ospreys, and many terns and gulls. I got to eat oysters and fish, and Lee enjoyed his bacon-wrapped shrimp.

That’s a cucumber margarita. I liked it!

It was a successful day of fairly good weather and lots of fun. Happy 17th anniversary to us!

The Motorhome’s a-Rockin’

Today after the usual leisurely preparations, we drove down to the Rockport area to camp at Goode Island State Park. I now wish I’d booked it longer, since it will rain tomorrow and be pretty cold Sunday. Nonetheless, I bet we can find ways to see birds and use the cameras! Something other than sparrows! Yes!

Like blurry Pelicans! Only bird I saw before it got dark.

It’s a nice drive here, and I love all the small towns and large oak trees we see. There were birds. Here are “a few” vultures on a tower. The next tower over had zero vultures.

We are getting good at setting up the motorhome quickly, which is good, because we lost a half hour of light when the staff at the truck stop we visited to fuel up repeatedly got our ZIP Code wrong or programmed to pay for the wrong pump. I’d stayed inside and went to lie down on the bed and ended up having a nice nap.

The water and electricity are on the “wrong” side at this campsite, but we managed to pull the hose and power cord over with room to spare. And with no trees, Lee had no trouble hooking up the satellite receiver. I only had a few minutes to look around, but I’m pretty excited about all the water surrounding us. There’s a lot of wading and swimming bird habitat!

You can see we’re in the last site before the end of the island.

Right now, though, the wind is so strong that it feels like we are in a boat. This is a heavy vehicle, but we are rocking. The waves are really attacking the bulkheads, too. By morning the tide will be lower and maybe it will be calmer. We will see!