community – Page 12 – The Hermits' Rest

Too Much Contemplation, Maybe

I didn’t write a blog yesterday, because as hard as I tried to distract myself, I just pondered and pondered the highs and lows of life. It started because the morning was spent at the funeral service for a friend’s husband, who died at 86. It was a surprise to all, since he’d planned to do stuff that day and was also planning to live to be 100.

Not a native plant here, but I still love the red yucca.

I’m glad so many members of our extended community were there to support my friend, because it’s always hard when your life’s story takes a hard turn into a new direction. And that’s what got me thinking of how many others I know who’ve recently lost their partners and how long it takes to get back into a groove again while dealing with a big hole in their lives.

Life is short, but new life is all around. Look, a skipper caterpillar is emerging!

It seems to me that sometimes it’s hard for folks to go out and have fun again. I know many are helped by sharing memories and talking about how much the departed loved one would love to see them doing well. As the minister hinted at the funeral, you’ve not really lost your partner, just physically separated. I could see how the Christian beliefs of my friend and her family were comforting in that respect.

I’m comforted by my experiences that thanks to memories, I feel the presence of my loved ones, like my dad, especially. I always find myself “telling” him things.

Dad also liked moss roses and disliked annoying nutsedge.

Anyway, to take my mind our of thinking about how lives change suddenly, I convinced Lee to take me to lunch at a fun place we’d never eaten at before, the Oscar Store, which is the only thing in Oscar, a settlement just outside of Temple, Texas. We drive by it often, because it’s on our favorite shortcut to Tractor Supply and Lowe’s.

It’s really cute inside and outside of the restaurant, and the food is great. I had liver and onions with fantastic lima beans and fried okra. Yes, lima beans. They were in a yummy sauce. I was full well past dinner time from that! Lee had a beautiful cheeseburger.

After the fine lunch we went to look at outdoor furniture at Lowe’s, because we need stuff that’s heavier and won’t blow into the pool repeatedly. The stuff we replace can go on the back porch at the Red House, since we don’t have stairs there yet.

So, that helped. But, I still sorta dwelt on things the whole day. What else helped was that I spent much of my pondering time listening to birds, of which I keep identifying more and more. Plus, I got to plant the flowers I showed you above. I finally found portulaca or moss roses so I could plant them by the pool.

These will grow and grow, blooming until there’s a hard frost.

That overheated me like crazy, so I had to jump in the pool, even though it has a lot of grass in it from the mower going the wrong way by it, and there were also flying ants. Yuck. But the water was refreshing!

Time with the horses also helped, of course, They are doing darned well, and yesterday I even figured out that Apache had to pee and moved off his kidneys for ease of pee. He was full of opinions and also informed me when it was time to stop riding. He makes me laugh. Drew is way more cooperative, though he was really muddy this morning!

The rest of the weekend is for relaxing. I bought a whole bunch of stuff to make sandwiches for Sunday Dinner. The things I’ll do so I don’t have to cook…the sandwich ingredients probably cost more than making something to cook.

Nothing’s wrong with pondering your and your loved ones’ mortality occasionally. It helps you remember to treasure every single day.

Just Goofy

Long day. Got a lot done and even received my new internet thingie. Can’t make it go, so more tech support tomorrow. Think of me.

I’m as stubborn as these persistent tie vines, though. I’ll get there.

By the time I got to an event I’d been looking forward to, a party for our recent Master Naturalist class graduates, I had a raging headache. Turns out the weather was changing. But the food was good and I enjoyed talking to friends.

After all the serious photos I took, we got goofy with the paper flower decorations.

Yes, there’s an invisible hand behind my head. Mostly invisible.

When I got home, Lee proved he was just as goofy as us. We all needed a good laugh!

Well, we dodged the worst hail from tonight’s storm and haven’t lost power. That’s probably because Martha isn’t across the street. Lightning DID hit the transformer across the road from her, though. Is Martha and lightning equal to Kathleen and snakes? let’s hope it’s coincidence.

I guess headaches make me goofy.

Earth Day Campout Highlights

Most of today has been great. The big highlights were predominantly nature oriented, but I also rekindled some old friendships and made some fun new friends.

After coffee by a nice campfire I went on a brisk (for me) hike on the trail that goes around Lake Georgetown. The whole trail is 26 miles long, so no, we didn’t go the whole way. The weather was perfect, and we enjoyed going up and down the limestone escarpments. I didn’t take as many photos as usual, though I found a few new plants I had to record.

We enjoyed views of the lake and all its sights and sounds. I was sad to find zebra mussel shells on the shoreline. They’re very invasive. So is the Japanese honeysuckle we saw. But a black swallowtail cheered me up.

In our way back, I remarked to Mike that we were in the perfect habitat for golden-cheeked warblers, with Ashe junipers and native oaks. I swear only three steps later, the blaring “la cucaracha” call rang out! We never spotted the bird, but it sang for quite a while. Great Earth Day experience! Here is scenery from the trail.

I was ready for a nice rest after the hike, so I hung out with Lee for a while. Then I did some chatting with new arrivals. Of course there were some campsite emergencies that we helped take care of. The afternoon culminated with a tradition campout potluck meal. Unfortunately, the original location was lost, and I offered our shelter for the food.

I didn’t realize everyone would sit next to our motorhome. It was too hard for Lee to be near people for that long, so I won’t make that error again! I made a couple other mistakes being too hospitable, but I’ve learned the hard way to keep folks away from the RV. I sure feel bad for that!

Young and old gathered. Loudly. Fun for non-hermits.

We did find the summer tanager again, which helped a little. I’m very grateful to the Merlin app that identifies bird calls, even though at first it said it was a Baltimore oriole, which got us overly excited. Away from the crowd, it got the ID right, plus we saw the bird and it was red, not orange. I ended up getting extra blurry photos of the male and a better one of the female. They are beautiful birds with a beautiful song.

It was fun to show birds and plants to others. I wish there were opportunities to do this at parks in Milam County for volunteer hours!

Super Fun Nature Time at Mother Neff Park

I’ve been sorta down about nature and her ways, so I haven’t been writing much (I’ll talk about it eventually). But today’s Master Naturalist field trip to Mother Neff State Park gave me so many hours of fun that I must share!

Some of our group at the park headquarters.

We carpooled, and I was impressed to fit five people in my new car successfully. It’s hard to feel down with my Master Naturalist lady friends. I just love all the stories about Cameron, Rockdale, and people I never heard of before but wish I could have known. We ended up with a good sized group for a walk on the trails with a nice young intern.

I have to admit that I was not a very good participant in the guided walk. My partner in crime, Linda Jo, and I could not keep ourselves from stopping every few steps to look at plants or insects. That was way more interesting to us than the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or whatever. When you are with the iNaturalist Queen, you make observations, so I did!

Linda Jo and I had an absolute BLAST looking at all the plants we found. Between the two of us, we found interesting new-to-us plants and some rare things. It’s so much better doing this stuff with others, as I learned on that warbler walk a couple of weeks ago. Linda Jo said I made a great spotter.

We did enjoy some of the interesting spots along the trail, of course. There was a lovely pond, a big cave, and a tower built by the CCC. A lot of climbing up and down was involved, so we got tired, but it was “a good kind of tired.” I’m glad to have gone, since we missed all this part of the park when Lee and I were there before.

I did want to see the trail we walked last time, around Christmas, but everyone was tired. So, Linda Jo and I just walked a little bit of it. We didn’t need to go far to find all sorts of interesting plants. We were like little kids at Christmas, just about giddy with all our findings. I found a most gorgeous milkweed that neither of us had ever seen before, star milkweed. Then we found some phlox I’d never seen before, golden-eyed phlox. and there was yet another kind of paintbrush!

And there was more. The other folks said they could hear us calling out to each other when we found something. I can’t imagine having a better time doing something I love!

After I reluctantly let the others leave, we had even more fun at lunch, when we went to a very good restaurant on Lake Belton (Dead Fish Grill?). It was quite big, and we were able to eat outside but under cover. All the food looked good, as was my rainbow trout.

There were a few little incidents, but for the most part, everyone had a blast and learned a great deal. My only complaint is I got home too late to ride horses. That’s really not the end of the world, because tomorrow will be another beautiful day, just like today was.

That’s a yellow crescent blister beetle.

I’m so glad to have a community of like-minded folks to hang out with on occasion!

Success and Failure: Two Sunday Projects

This morning I set out to see how the flowers and insects are doing here at the Hermits’ Rest. I needed some Nature Time and wanted to see if I could locate and dwarf blue-eyed grass, winecups, or Texas baby blue eyes. I knew they should be up by now.

At first I just found old friends and tiny wasps.

I enjoyed walking on our property all the way to the creek and back. The bluebonnets and paintbrush plants are going to seed, but there’s lots of other plants to see.

It seemed like almost every flower had an insect or two getting nectar or pollen (or eating it). It was a lot of fun to observe and later to try to identify what I saw.

I was interested in seeing what’s new, and sure enough, I eventually found all the plants I sought. The little blue eyed grass was easy to find along the driveway, now that it’s dried up a little.

Winecups were hiding in my horse playground, but a new patch appeared near the chicken house. This flower also hosted many insects.

The Texas baby blue eyes were harder to find, since my old patch got plowed over last year. But, when I was gazing at the far end of Walker’s Creek, I looked on the shore, and there they were. Later I finally saw some in our woods. I love these flowers, because they were my introduction to Texas wildflowers when I saw them at McKinney Falls State Park the first spring I was here.

I was happy I found the flowers I wanted. There were also SO many butterflies, many of which I photographed. Not shown are the variegated fritillary, spicewood swallowtail, and tiny sulphur.

I found a lot of new or interesting bugs and plants, especially when I took my friends Anita and Martha out to look at plants while Easter dinner was cooking. Here are highlights.

It really was a great plant day, and I really enjoyed sharing observations with friends. I left my phone in the car when I went over to Sara’s to get some leafy greens, but we had the best time just observing the flowers and insects in the pasture next to her house. There was so much clover in the field that we stood there blissfully inhaling its spicy scent. Ahh.

I made the pak choi she gave me into a delicious side dish (mostly Kathleen did it), so that was FRESH.

Anyway, the time with friends was so nice, as the afternoon sun made the people, the dogs, and the flowers grow.

So, What’s the Failure?

Well…I had this nutty idea that I was going to ride the horses today, or else! I guess “else” ensued.

First I got my precious boy, Droodles. I quickly realized that he resembled a chocolate-covered Easter treat. There was a dried layer of clay mud over much of his surface area.

It had dried to where it could be future pottery.

I figured I’d just curry comb it out. Nope. I did get a lot off but I could tell it hurt him and was pulling out hair. I tried to get mud out of his tail, and hairs broke off. Oops. I realized I would not be saddling him. So I rinsed him off, but he was not thrilled. At least much mud got out of his mane and tail.

So, Plan B was to at least do some ground work. We did get some done, but when he slipped hard jumping, I ended that. I sure didn’t need to get him hurt. So he went into a pen to await his food. What did he immediately do? He rolled. At least it was in dry dirt.

Nope. Not gonna groom that quite yet, either.

I tried to get Apache in to groom, but after nearly hurting myself and losing both shoes in the mud, I gave up. I didn’t want me (myself?) or a horse hurt. Better miss your project goal than injure humans or livestock!

I enjoyed my grass on the eroded pond dirt.

At least dinner was good. Rice cooker jambalaya to feed seven! And the pak choi in sesame oil, plus a great salad from Martha and Chardonnay from Anita. I think the men liked it! No time for photos, because we ate it!

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do?

I don’t know what to do or say or think about the divided society I live in. I’ve been trying to hold it together and feeling isolated and more and more defeated. I had such bad nightmares last night that I knocked a glass of water over. What a mess. Things are a mess.

Hint about why I’m sad. I love children.

I know I’m not alone. I am grateful for a supportive network of friends. I’m grateful for people with different perspectives who are willing to talk to me. But there’s so little I can do to help make a safer society (where we don’t worry about all the things we’re concerned about from all sides). The Texas Legislature has no interest in my thoughts. I’m not a huge lobby.

I think all the people I know feel powerless, like someone else is making decisions. We just blame different factions. Everyone is frustrated. The world feels like a scary pile of poop. I can’t change that. Even venting among friends only goes so far.

I wish I could just be a bird, or a scarlet pimpernel.

So, I clean things. Poopy things. Thankfully, a vacuum cleaner for the RV arrived. I took out my frustrations on mouse turds. (And dirt; there were only a few turds.)

That helped. But I needed to clean more. So I shoveled all the horse poop out of the trailer. I hope that doesn’t make me sick. It did involve hay, after all.

I didn’t have to clean the shed. Someone had already weed-eated what the horses had missed. My tack room helps me feel better.

I wasn’t done cleaning. The tack room doesn’t have much of a mouse problem right now, but there are “fly specks” on my stuff. Or were. I cleaned all that, too. Then I got out my good old buddy the label maker!

I have some new horse supplements and will need feeding help soon, so new labels had to be made. I felt so organized and productive. And I’m control. At least I can control my dang horse stuff, and I even feel safe in my little room.

I actually do feel a little better just by making my little part of the world cleaner and happier. And I guess that’s the lesson I needed to remind myself of. I can do what I can do. I can clean things (no wonder I like grooming the horses).

These guys helped by picking up hoof trimmings.

And now I can think about ways to help others. I’ve send some funds to recent tornado victims. I can contribute to organizations I agree with, and I CAN contact elected officials and remind them they’re human and are supposed to serve humans, not institutions. I guess.

Rolling Home Improvements – No Bull!

My family likes to renovate homes. You may already know that! We’re low on actual homes, so it became time to renovate the rolling home, Seneca the Motorhome. Lee had a plan to make himself a rolling home office.

We hardly ever use the dinette that converts to a bed fit only for children. So, the men of the house got to work. It wasn’t too hard to get anything out except the seat belts. Those were in really well, which was a good thing when I was riding in there.

They unbolted the dining table and put it up the correct height to be a desk. They had to put it next to the couch, because that’s where electrical outlets are. I think it’s a good spot.

I like that you can more easily get to the bathroom when the slide outs are closed. And a person could watch television and work, as long as that person isn’t Lee. He needs to concentrate. He’s ordered a desk chair that will look good, and there will be tie-downs to keep the chair secure when we’re on the road.

I ordered a nice little vacuum cleaner for all the past and no doubt future mouse turds. It didn’t help that dog food was lodged under the dinette! All in all, I’m looking forward to our next outing.

The Bull Part

This started my day off right Sunday. I headed out to feed the chickens and check on the horses and noticed the horses were all near the pens, not out grazing. They do that sometimes, so it wasn’t a big deal. Then I realized something was amiss.

Hmm. Droodles and Apache were in the bull’s pasture and Haggard was relaxing in a horse pen. Interesting.

I was briefly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to set them back to not, but as the photo hints, the horses came back to be petted as soon as they saw me. Then Haggard just got up and sauntered back where he belonged.

Fiona wouldn’t come back, so she was stuck on the other side once I re-shut the gate (which some equine must have opened). By the time I came back to ride horses, she was braying to come back. No bull!

In Conclusion

It was just a nice day yesterday. It ended with a big family dinner including the whole gang, for once. Vlassic enjoyed that we were all outside a lot. It was too nice to stay inside! We Texans treasure pleasant weather whenever it shows up.

Martha and Vlassic had a lot of catching up to do.

A Night of Pride and Joy

Yesterday made up for a lot of struggle and hard work for many in my family and community. Cameron held its Spring Festival, and everyone got to relax and let our hair down a bit. We even got to have Kathleen join us, which made us all happy. I’m so glad she got a break from taking care of things in Yorktown!

It was so nice to hang out together again! And have margaritas from the local winery trailer.

There’s a lot to be proud of here. The Railfan team has nearly finished another two spaces that will eventually be local businesses, and the antique shop was all set up and looking great last night (I forgot to take photos of that, darn it).

Look at those floors! And us having fun.

We really enjoyed the new “annex” space last night. The new sliding doors open up so it’s like you’re outdoors. It was an incredibly comfortable place to relax, laugh, listen to music, and enjoy pizza and crawfish (separately).

The highlight of the night, though, was a very special event. The musicians paused, and Melanie Reed from the Chamber of Commerce called Chris, Mike, Kim, and Dylan up to the stage (they would have also called my kid up, if he’d been there). They had a special presentation for our extra-talented nephew to thank him for all the hard work and creative vision that’s helped the McMahon’s make huge improvements to the buildings downtown that were vacated by the city offices moving to another place. I have to say I smiled so hard that my cheeks started to hurt.

The presentation was a blown-up photo of Chris at work outside one of the downtown buildings looking like the true craftsman he is. We all loved the “cash” sign above him. It was wonderful to see Chris getting the credit he deserves for his part in bringing this vision to life (he would point out it’s a team effort, and that Mike, Kim, Dylan, and Declan also have added their ideas and effort). I’m so glad Kathleen was able to be there to see it, too. We are very proud.

It sure was great to hang out with friendly people and talk and laugh at all the antics. I met many new folks, got to hang out with some of my favorite local friends, actually heard some good news, and for a few hours, didn’t worry about anything. We all need some time to take a break and celebrate friends, community, and accomplishments. I’m looking forward to future progress and pride in little Cameron.

Michelle dressed as a hot dog. She’s the real Yoe Dawg.

Better Days, Better Vision, Coming Soon

First off, I have NO idea where yesterday’s whiny-ass post came from. Of course I know there are many good things in my life and people who like me. I was just thinking about other things.

The week is still weird. I mis-remembered when my appointment in Austin was, so I rushed to feed the horses quickly. Of COURSE they decided it wasn’t time to eat yet and took forever to get there to eat. At least no one escaped.

They were only marginally faster than this little guy I saw on the way to the small pond.

I did get a little time to pull some weeds and enjoy the sunshine and nice temperatures, briefly. I got to pull some “bastard cabbage,” too. I have to leave our property to get much, though, because I’ve mostly eradicated it.

Not eradicated: June bugs. It’s March. They just know I want to swim.

Things are looking up. I finally made it to the eye doctor today, after postponing a couple appointments due to horse events. I found out our eye doctor is going camping with us and other friends next month. Yay. And I had so much fun picking frames with my favorite employee there. She knows just what I like. I did order a pair that are different from what I usually get. They have wire rims!

After overdosing on cool frames, I got to enjoy a delicious Italian dinner with two of our former Bobcat neighbors and we filled each other in on news we don’t put on social media. Ah, I love in-person meetups. They fill me with positive energy.

Of course, I invited everyone I saw today to come stay at the vacation rental. More in person meetings to come, I hope.

I ordered new computer glasses, too, since they have a new way of doing them. These are so pretty I just want to look at them.

Things are looking up in other ways. This weekend promises to be fun and full of good stuff. I’m reminded of how grateful I am for people who are kind and care. See, I can be positive!

Cheers to Friends and Family

Not much to say about today, but there was much goodness involved. I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends this week and it’s left me feeling mellow and connected. That doesn’t happen often, so cheers!

And yes, I went overboard with my St. Patrick’s Day theme. Not shown are sparkly green shoes. The shirt says “Lucky,” not what you’re thinking.

I enjoyed lunch with my friends Trixie and Sara, next door. We hadn’t seen Trixie since a health crisis, so it was excellent to do some chatting about horses.

I had breakfast with these gals. The wind was so bad last night that it blew their door open. They just followed me back in when I fed them. Sweet hens.

After work was something very wonderful and long awaited. The Venue that our family members worked on for so long officially opened and had its ribbon cutting by our Chamber of Commerce buddies. Barbara, who is running her catering business there, is so excited. Her entire extended family was, too.

Everyone was so happy. The renovation team got to be in the photos, too. See if you can find my family hiding.

Another exciting part was that my son and his band-mate, Austin, got to be part of the entertainment. It was their first gig in Cameron. They did good, and I got to enjoy it with my friend Pamela! I was thrilled to know so many of my local friends were seeing him play. Proud mom overload!

I get so proud to be a part of a small-town community and to see how it’s growing through so many people’s hard work and vision. Cheers to the folks with vision and forethought who are making our town fun and full of culture. Now, please enjoy some photos.