The person behind The Hermits' Rest blog and many others. I'm a certified Texas Master Naturalist and love the nature of Milam County. I manage technical writers in Austin, help with Hearts Homes and Hands, a personal assistance service, in Cameron, and serve on three nonprofit boards. You may know me from La Leche League, knitting, iNaturalist, or Facebook. I'm interested in ALL of you!
Oh you know the phrase. Yes, everyone in the southeast of the USA knows a storm is coming. We’ve all bought bread, milk (ok, not me), flashlight batteries, and foods that don’t need refrigeration, so we can keep the doors shut if the Texas power grid fails again.
I don’t think the mistletoe will have problems with the weather unless the branch it’s on breaks.
Animals are safe, too. Got food and shelter. And Carlton is healing well. Relief.
My plans are to stay home and inside other than feeding equines and fowl. I have appropriate clothing for that.
Our winter red-stem storksbill will probably be fine, too.
Tomorrow I have lots of work to keep me busy and this weekend I have crafts (making a hat), reading, and talking to friends to occupy my time.
I’m better but leave me alone.
And I’m feeling better, thanks to my extended community. I’m so grateful.
No kidding, today started out like nothing was going to go right. My first sight, when I went out to check the exciting .04” of rain we got, was an unpleasant unalive mammal. An hour or so later I stepped in gross septic water because it was draining near the chicken pens.
They do have a new entrance ramp, though.
Next I sprayed cold water all over myself trying to fix the automatic waterer without turning off the water. Bright. I did fix it, and my offspring the handyman built a temporary brace to stop big, clumsy Darryl Junior from stomping on the water hose and loosening the connection. Yay.
There is now another piece of concrete and some wood where my foot is here, to stabilize the hose. Yes that’s my wet shoe. And the other thing is what I put their grit in, and it’s a pig (someone always asks).
Then I dropped stuff and nearly failed in putting mice traps in the tack room (sorry, don’t want to die of hanta virus). I got stuff all over me.
At least I had a good interlude when my Precious Stepsister called and she listened to my anxiety stuff. That’s because I gave her a rock.
Not the rock I gave her, but my message to you!
And finally, I sat down to enjoy Facebook at lunch only to discover this article, detailing how the homophobia in Texas is so bad that a children’s book author whose in-laws I’ve known for decades can be prevented from talking about his charming nonfiction books (I’ve read many of them) in elementary schools because there is one sentence in one book that acknowledges LGBTQIA+ people exist. How low can this place go? Rhetorical question.
Read all about Chris Barton and consider buying a young friend (or yourself) one of his books. As a matter of fact, I bought a copy of every book he’s written for children and sent them to my unofficial granddaughter.
And our US Senator has once again left the state when bad weather is coming. Coincidence, I’m sure.
I was pretty mad at the world much of the day, especially when the dogs found something I won’t mention and brought it into the house to fight over. While Penney tried to kill Carlton (she kept going when he stopped at Lee’s command, so Carlton lost), Harvey ate the contested item. All I can say is I’m glad I was feeding horses then. It sounded pretty yucky.
You can sorta see a scrape under his chin, but his leg is worse; he’s favoring it (but it’s not broken).
After all those small things built up, I was about to go crawl under the covers, but then I had a second good phone call of the day that cheered me up about possible not horrible developments in my life!
And we had a Screech Owl today. Yay!
See, there’s always good among the nauseating events. You just have to be patient and not spend all day hiding under the covers.
I can’t say I’m doing all that well these days. Anxiety attacks are getting in the way of trying to live a reasonable life. One woke me up this morning! Geez! Everyone has times like this in their lives, to give them something to compare to when good times come along, right? Sure!
I write like a third grade student, sigh.
Today I found myself painting rocks while trying to organize a complicated piece of writing. I now see they were all messages to myself. That gave me a chuckle. They are still drying, so I’ll give you other recent messages.
This one will sit on my desk. This is the other side. I hug much more now than I used to.
It was too cold and cloudy to do much birding today, which didn’t help my mood. Tomorrow should be okay, so I’ll get out more and make Apache do things for no real reason. Maybe I’ll try to do some liberty work with him, or something.
My other new hobby seems to be painting things without enough contrast.
Honestly, today wasn’t all bad. Work was good and we finally started watching Star Fleet Academy, which is very Star Trek. In it, they’ve recovered from a huge disaster, and that positive outlook was nice to see.
Oh look, I colored, too.
By the way, thanks for your positive comments on my recent writings. It feels good to think I give people food for thought. I assure you that many of you inspire me!
New topic! At the annual meeting of Texas Master Naturalists, I always look forward to the booth for Texas A&M Press. They always have beautiful nature books that I can choose among. Entwined: Dispatches from the Intersection of Species, by Bridget A. Lyons, was one of my choices this past year.
The book is a collection of essays about Lyons’s close interactions with nature all over the world. She shares stories of a career working in wildernesses on land and sea, all over the world. She really has gotten around and is a great athlete, so she has been places most of us will never get to go. I feel like I can surf after reading her descriptions of her favorite pastime.
The essays are very intriguing. Lyons writes very well and shares her personal insights into whales, octopuses, trees, owls, and polar birds. Her overarching theme is that we are all connected and that our human actions have effects we may not imagine.
Yep, some of her writing is sobering, but other parts are gloriously uplifting and put you in the middle of landscapes and settings that are complex and fragile. And whoa, do you learn a lot.
Oh, Lyons is not only a writer and editor, she’s also an accomplished artist. Part of the delight of Entwined is encountering the linoleum block print illustrations she created to accompany the stories.
What a cool octopus!
I read this book slowly, so I could savor, take in the knowledge, and internalize the lessons Lyons shares. I’d recommend any thoughtful and open-minded nature lover to find this book and read it. There are some ideas that we might find a little “out there” but they have me food for thought.
Fireweed
Now, go out and see what the nature around you has to tell you!
Today I learned the spring behind “my” pond is still flowing, albeit lightly. Amazed me.
I couldn’t write much last night, because I’d had some wine and wasn’t able to sort through the events of the day well enough. I’m not sure that I’m finished processing yet, but I’m working on it.
My processing face
It was extra cold yesterday morning! I finally got to make a temperature blanket square with purple in it (it was 21° F). It did warm up enough to take a nice walk mid-morning, though. bluebirds were everywhere, and I found their gentle song quite comforting.
After watching yet another team I like lose in the American football playoffs (all the ones I liked lost in close games), Lee and I brought more hay out for the horses, and of course they all got out and scattered in search of better grass, of which there wasn’t any. They didn’t know that. At least I got exercise encouraging them to come back in.
It’s a very good thing they can’t see this cover crop across the road. It’s so green (rye grass, I assume).
Where I got all my processing to process was going to a gathering of woman at a friend’s house. It was very heartwarming to see so many like-minded women in one place. Some of the conversation was hard on me. I heard details of activities of people I already disapprove of that made me sick.
It’s really like the mega-wealthy who have the power live in yet a third society where the guidelines for ethical and moral behavior do not apply. I guess I knew this. You can pretty much do anything if you’re a white man in that society. It makes their hard-core MAGA followers seem tame. I guess I could have lived without so many details, though it’s good to know. (I do not have citations for you, but I heard them).
Yuck. How I wish we’d been able to keep on the path toward making Martin Luther King’s dream come true. I’d sure sleep better at night.
My rock for today.
But, human nature doesn’t fundamentally change, does it? We have more machines, infrastructure, and stuff, but there are still elites and powerless people, wars started just because someone is power hungry, and people living in fear. It was this way a thousand years again, two thousand years ago, and no doubt long before that.
Fighting human nature is frustrating and will fail more often than it succeeds. I will still keep trying.
It was darned cold and windy this morning as I headed over to my friend’s house to show some of our Master Naturalist friends the beaver dams and ponds I visited earlier this month.
At least it was sunny! Ponds are among the trees in the distance.
I recovered from being lost and going down the wrong road, and everything went fine. I remembered all my beaver facts and just started spitting them out authoritatively. I think I even taught people some things they didn’t know!
Ruby howled her approval.
I had a good time looking at the area again and seeing changes. There were trees with new evidence of bark chewing, which made me happy.
Click to see these larger
We saw the beaver trails, an entrance they use for one pond, and some tracks. I think people enjoyed themselves. I sure did!
Beaver trailPond entranceIntrepid visitors
After we were done, we ate at one of our local Mexican restaurants. I enjoyed a delicious cup of Mexican hot chocolate in a beautiful mug. It got me thinking about how much there is to treasure about Mexican culture, so on my way home I got a few yummy Mexican baked goods. Mmmm.
It was pretty nasty outside so I didn’t do birding and I just took care of birds and equines quickly. I’m glad they all have good shelter now (I saw evidence the turkeys used their hut last night).
Cold-looking sky
Mostly I watched football, read, and crafted today. Here’s what my tan themed temperature block for January looks like so far. I like it.
I’m getting some criticism for sharing thoughts more directly on Facebook, but that’s fine. Feel free to fire me from your life if my truth bothers you! it’s becoming more important to speak out and be brave.
Today had its ups and downs, but in the interest of time I’ll just share ups. You’re welcome.
Look!
The turkeys are happy to share that their hit is finished. According to my son, they were VERY helpful while he was moving it into place and getting it painted. They really wanted to help him paint and kept trying to grab the brushes.
We’re not shy. We also appreciate our water dish being put on a level surface!
I love how well the hut matches the henhouse, tack room, and horse pens. It’s so classic barn red. And it has a nice metal roof with few sharp edges to give me tetanus.
Off the ground for drainageRoof. It slants two inches to drain rain out of the yard. We put shavings in it.
I hope the dang turkeys use it. This evening I went out to check on them and the only occupants I saw were the chickens in their area and this guy in the backup coop. He is not a turkey.
You interrupted my rummaging through chicken feed!
Oh well. It isn’t going to hurt anyone. The turkeys would peck it to death first.
Other good stuff? Lee and I did a non-hermit thing and went to a friend’s house for dinner. We had a wonderful time in an old farmhouse laughing and telling stories with our friend and the other guest. He was also a hermit. We had a lot in common. This is the kind of thing we should do more often. It’s great to meet smart, funny, like-minded folks out here.
This painting was on the wall. It’s by a friend I miss very much.
When I got home I had a long phone call with my former professor, Doc Shenkman, who just happens to have spent many years training law enforcement officers in ethics and acting within the law. As you can imagine, he had interesting things to say. He’d called so I could cheer him up, but I don’t think the stories I shared from my friends in Minneapolis did that. But, it’s good to hear the perspective of someone trained in law enforcement on recent events.
And as always, we both noted that there are many agents acting as they should, doing a hard and unpopular job. I just want us all safe, treated with respect, and able to express ourselves without fear.
Rock for today.
I hope I didn’t veer too far off the cheerful, but all the conversations today (family, work, friends, and new friends) made me feel less alone and a wee bit more hopeful.
Darryl Jr and Connie Gobbler are going to be happier this chilly weekend, because they are getting their very own Turkey Hut! It’s a custom-crafted abode made of the finest leftovers from construction projects.
Today’s progress
The space is designed to be big enough for the turkeys to enter and exit but small enough to keep them warm. It will be placed against the henhouse wall once completed. The opening faces south, away from the cold north winds.
It seems pretty big.
Lee wants it to look good, so it will have siding, a metal roof (it slants to the rear so rain will drain, and spiffy paint matching the barns here. I enjoyed hanging out with my son on my lunch break, getting supplies and treats from the bakery. Having some family fun helps remind me of the good in the world.
Today’s rock
And this rock symbolizes how today felt to me. I’m deeply grateful to friends who have been incredibly supportive and kind for the past few days. I’m much more emotionally stable just knowing that I have real friends, including those from all over the political and spiritual spectrum, and from both inside and outside the US. And heck, my family have also been so good to me today—I feel a little more inclined to look forward to fun someday. I even had a great talk with a coworker about potential future plans after we finished writing some complex stuff.
Rainbow from earlier in the week, compliments of neighbor Vicki.
So yeah, it’s not the most peaceful time to be alive, but I’ve not been abandoned by all my communities, and I know I’ve led as good a life as I could. No one can take that away!
No, not for me; it’s too late for that. But Apache has retired from his horse training adventures a bit earlier than expected.
Good. More napping for me.
We will still work together and hang out. I’m very glad to have my equine companions to enjoy every day. I’m prepared to care for them as best as I can for as long as I can. They have good food, supplements, regular hoof trimmings, and yearly checkups. It’s a good life for horses and donkeys and they provide me with a reason to get up every morning. Good deal.
And food. Plenty of it!
Onward and upward. In today’s climate, you never know what changes are coming. But I’m never giving up on hope for a safe and peaceful future for us all.
Apache is always up for a post-meal yawning festMabel is prettier every day and her feet look so goodFiona grazes enthusiastically on leftovers Dusty takes his timeHe makes his own gravy!Feeding time fun
I have some firmly held beliefs that have caused me deep sadness because I dare to express them. you can be blackballed for these beliefs. And of course I realize my beliefs are aspirational goals.
I expect the following groups of people to be treated with respect and dignity by their community, leaders, and law enforcement.
Women
Children
Black, brown, red, and white people
Gays
Lesbians
Trans people
Bisexuals
Intersex people
Anyone who loves anyone else or presents as any gender they want to
Pagans
Jews
Liberal Christians
Muslims
Any other spiritual path I missed
Descendants of Pilgrims
Native Americans
US Citizens
Legal Immigrants
Undocumented immigrants
People with physical handicaps
People with mental handicaps
Those addicted to or who abuse legal or illegal substances
People who commit crimes
People who make bad mistakes
People of all political parties or groups
Criminals
Poor people
Rich people
Intellectuals
Feminists
White supremacists
Oh, pretty much everybody
I didn’t say I condone or agree with ideas or actions of everyone, but basic human decency means that you can disagree, keep yourself safe, and enforce laws respectfully. I know it can happen. I know it’s never happened 100%, but we’re doing worse now, not better.
At least my animals still like me.
It also makes me unpopular to believe that the following people should be allowed to express their thoughts in the USA:
People who agree with the current US government’s policies and actions
People who like some things about the current situation and not other things
People who disagree with or have concerns with how our leaders conduct themselves and the decisions they make
People who believe what they see with their own eyes
People who prefer to be told what to believe
This state of affairs should not turn us against each other. Please don’t let us keep falling further and further into us versus them. We all suffer when that happens. Our families, friendships, businesses, and communities suffer. We lose the ability to trust.
Kindness starts with YOU. And me.
I’m despondent tonight over losing a friend. I should not have admitted that I’m afraid of things that are happening in the US. It’s becoming more and more clear that if I want to be safe I should not question what happens, do as I’m told, keep my head down, stay inside, and shut up. Damn, I’ve tried to be a good person.
The Hermits' Rest 