This was such a pretty day. It started out cool and barely got to 70°F. I had hoped to spend most of the day outdoors, and I got a good start in the morning by taking a long walk, then guarding two escaped calves until the owner could move them back inside. Only one truck was going fast enough to hurt them but I slowed it down. They’re valuable livestock!
EscapeesFun?This calf was judging themMy first sight of them
Then I spent time with the chickens trying to figure out why bees are all over their food. I still don’t know, but Clint assures me they are delicious. Extra protein!
Check out the bees! Tasty little snacksI like them, too.
Bonus bee, rooster and turkey video. Hear the buzz and gobbles.
Back at the house, I tried to finish January on the temperature blanket but got sleepy, which is odd, because I slept great last night. I went upstairs and collapsed into a deep sleep that I had a hard time waking up from. It was a weird feeling. I thought I was sick or something but maybe I should have eaten more.
Like this fellow, I just collapsed.
I made myself get up and go outside once I could move around. I took some photos with the telephoto lens but haven’t downloaded them yet. It wasn’t such a great bird day anyway.
I saw a formation of planes, three white, three black. They went north then came back.
I’d intended to ride Apache but was feeling lightheaded so I just exercised him. I’m sure he’s thrilled. Tomorrow he has no choice.
Random horse pictures
I did get January all done. It needs blocking, but does look like a calendar! I like the border. It’s perky.
Tomorrow is Imbolc, a celebration that light is starting to appear from darkest winter (among other things). Nature brought the light a little early, and provided us with a rare cool, sunny day. It was mighty pleasant.
You could see colors on the birds!
I enjoyed a break from my very busy week by sitting outside after work, reflecting on how much I value my connections and wish I could cultivate them more.
I’m too busy sitting with birds, I guess.
At least I talked to my friend Donna yesterday, and she reminded me that the Purple Martins start to return this time of year. I also saw the bluebonnets getting bigger today, and I was happy, even though the speaker at last night’s Master Naturalist class informed us they are not native here, just in the granite areas of the hill country. Poo.
Lee was practicing with his camera so you can see what I look like when listening to and watching birds.
I know spring is coming, with turkey eggs every other day, calendar changes, getting my first new temperature blanket module done (tomorrow), and a new theme color for my journal and nail polishes. Stereotypical, it’s true, but February is all pink. I might even have pink in my hair. Ooooh.
I try not to complain, but I do it. Someone who has to live with me might have a different answer, but my assertion is that I complain most about the dogs barking and running outside at the slightest noise when I’m trying to watch television. It is so loud. At least now that we stream, it’s possible to pause.
When not barking all night, Goldie is cute.
Okay, I asked Lee and he said I complain most about the new occupant of the White House. He claims he complains most about the same guy I complain about, and also the death of customer service. I like that answer.
Alfred is Barker in Chief.
What I can’t complain about is Connie Gobbler. She’s all grown up now, I guess, because she laid her first egg today! And it does look like it has the measles!
Interesting pattern.
Of course I sent a picture to Heather, who gave her to me, and to her namesake, Connie. The egg is no bigger than Cindy-Cathy’s eggs, but future eggs should be bigger.
Connie’s egg next to Black Cochin eggs
I’m not complaining about the weather, either. We got an inch of rain, and I can tell the ponds are more full. We still need more, though.
One thing Lee and I did in Austin yesterday was get a zoom lens for our Cannon camera. It goes 150-500, and is pretty big but not ridiculous. We went to Precision Camera, a store I’ve patronized off and on since I moved here. I am glad they sell used equipment. New stuff is pricey.
Lens.
The first time I went to Precision Camera it was a much smaller store near the current one. I went with Mary Jo, the school librarian at my kids’ school, to get a digital camera so I could put photos on the school website. We got the best we could get in 1998, since it was a new school and we had funds. This fine camera could take ten pictures on its memory card. Then you’d have to slowly download to a PC to clear out space. Getting even one photo per class was tedious (plus no photos of children’s faces—we had already figured that out).
I’m pretty sure this was it. You can get your own here.
I digress. The current equipment we now have holds lots more photos, and we download them via the camera’s wifi, which even our mid-level Canon camera has. So see, some things are better now. My goal is to get photos of birds that will look good enough to ID on iNaturalist. I have no illusions of becoming an art photographer at this point in my life.
New lens triumphantly produced an identifiable White-crowned Sparrow.
Today was not a great day to try the new lens out, since it was misty and drizzly all day. The temperature only varied by 6° all day!
Two Collared Doves. It’s in focus.
Even though it was a gray day, I took many bird photos, some with the phone, which also has a good zoom but not as many pixels. I wanted to compare.
Collared Dove on phone camera.
The lens is heavy, so I’ll have to build arm strength. It has stabilizers, which is quite useful for shaky arms.
Luckily, whatever this thing is didn’t move.
Mostly I practiced taking pictures of our Great Egret as it preened its damp feathers. It’s great to be able to see it up close.
Cool!
On a sunny day I could do more, but I enjoyed trying different modes. I’m nowhere near able to manually manipulate settings. I’ll get there.
Click to see up close
I look forward to seeing what I can do around the ranch. I get plenty of bird variety here! Maybe I can get better photos out camping, too. Identifiable ones will suffice. I’ll leave you with a few of my experiments.
Nicely framed sparrowMockingbird in a treeMale and female LichenThe prickly pear with really long pricklesTwo more dovesVultures drying offMockingbird (this and the rest are phone photos)Mistletoe The next three are various views of a poorly lit female or immature White-crowned Sparrow.
Rather than doing the usual Saturday chores, Lee suggested we go to Austin and do something different. We call that spontaining. Being spontaneous, but more active.
So we drove to Austin (a thing we usually avoid), visited the wonderful camera store there and chatted with the friendly staff, bought Girl Scout cookies because I support them and could enjoy a few cookies, looked in the comic book store, which is really a gaming store, and enjoyed some memories of my past life.
With my weird attachments to places, I find returning to my old stomping grounds rather difficult. I get very sad, nostalgic, or something. But, I powered through it and checked out all the changes in greater north Austin. I still miss everything about the place except high property taxes and awful traffic.
We ended the day with a nice visit and dinner at my favorite small sushi restaurant (which is still fantastic and patronized my mainly Japanese people), with our friends and former business partners, Carol and Russell.
It’s sushi all right. Salmon, mmm.
We had great conversation, supported each other, and enjoyed the food. I’m so glad we are making the effort to see people. Even they aren’t going out as much these days, and they used to be so social.
We look like old friends.
Consider hanging out with a friend or two. It’s a privilege to be free to do so. And do some spontaining!
In the last few years I’ve done quite a few things I have been hesitant to do. It always feels like I’m stepping off the edge of a cliff. But every time I don’t fall. I live. *
See I’m alive.
I moved to a ranch in Texas. I’ve started and closed businesses. I’ve stood up to horrible bullies. I got off a tall horse without falling. I trotted and relaxed. I hiked six miles on my own. I raised my voice and dealt with the consequences. I’ll raise my voice again if I have to.
I’ve nursed a broken animal back to health, too. I didn’t think I could.
Today I did another grown woman thing. I drove myself and Apache to Tarrin’s. By myself. I pulled a trailer safely and successfully both directions! I lucked out and hit zero stoplights on the way out, but handled them fine coming back.
See. Here we are.
It would have been GREAT except my lesson is tomorrow. It says so, right on my calendar. Geez. At least my horse looked good as he arrived on the wrong day.
There’s something weird in my tail. Maybe Camena will pull it off.
Tarrin was nice about it and let me ride Apache around while she did her lesson. It was a lot of fun and good practice. He’s so comfortable there! And sparkly.
It’s a subtle sparkle.
I got these mane and tail clips a while ago. But hadn’t had time to figure them out until today. I got one glamour shot of him, but not in the sun. I probably should put in more clumps of green.
I feel like the steed on the cover of a romance novel!
I tried to get cute pictures of him after our ride but he really, really wanted to take a nap in the nice sun. I can’t blame him; the weather was perfect by afternoon.
Before anyone says anything, I know I shouldn’t let his reins lie on the ground. He wasn’t going anywhere. The green supposedly matches his tack. I’m sleepy. Leave me alone. Now I’m both annoyed and sleepy.
It was quite frosty this morning but only down into the 20s here. The afternoon was in the 50s (F).
Frosty chairFrost on a clump of Alfred hair. Made me laugh.
All the animals enjoyed the day, and I feel so much better being able to tow horses myself. Yep, I’m a grown-up woman with a sparkly but sleepy horse.
Goldie supervised the cattle. All the dogs ran and played with cows. Little birds were everywhere. This one, and at left, is a Western Meadowlark.
*I did think I’d died that one time I tried to canter on Droodles and was thrown off. But I lived.
I’ve been reading more different social media sites lately. I’m learning a lot, much of it not about political perspectives.
I read a lot of science and nature stuff, too.
The thing is, whenever someone says something good, others (some of whom I suspect aren’t real people) re-post it so many times that it’s quickly becoming pretty boring. I’m not immune to this. I probably re-post a couple of juicy bits of prose (long or short, depending on the site) a day. But I often see a dozen re-posts by the same account all in a row. Then someone else shares the same things.
Like, how many sunset photos will I share?
It’s good to share, but it’s even better, to me, to read original content and new perspectives. That’s one reason I persist in sharing my thoughts on social media. I hope it occasionally gives someone a new perspective, comfort, or a laugh. I’d love to see more of that on these platforms, actual thoughts and opinions of thoughtful people (see what I did there? It’s gotta be thoughtful).
Three. I will share three sunset photos.
I miss the days when Facebook showed me how my friends and family are doing, how cute their pets are, and how the weather is in their area. Some still do share, and I am full of appreciation. And with many going to other platforms, I’m putting out a plea: please share your own ideas, insights, photos or writings, not just the same stuff everyone else shares.
Speaking of pets, here’s Harvey, chugging along despite the liver issues.
The repetition is getting to me! Don’t let me go bonkers. Whatever that means.
Luckily, I have real life friends who I can talk to, share my fears and worries with, and provide support for. I’m so grateful to you all. I’m also glad to have friends in my social media private groups who I can hear from, learn from, and support from afar. And I have some super family members to rely on as well (even if they’re snowed in).
Oh, and there’s Ada, the Finch birb. She supports me from her snow camp, and my friends in the app help, too. Lots of hugging happens.
So let’s get out there are communicate with each other! Be original! You are ALL interesting!
I say “semi-old,” because I’m eligible for Social Security (still am two whole days into the new administration!), but I don’t consider people really old until they’re in their mid eighties. So, most of my friends aren’t old.
On another topic, it snowed, barely.
I’m say back, because I took yesterday off to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lee and I watched many, many episodes of the West Wing, a wonderful television show from a quarter century ago about a US President and his staff. Perfect.
I was a little mad that we got such wimpy snow. If we’re going to endure super-cold weather, we should get pretty snow as a reward.
I say angry, because right now I’m rather irritable and impatient. This makes me quite inarticulate, which irritates me more! I can’t even make rational statements other than how much I care about disenfranchised folks.
Happy picture of Penney loving her coordinated chicken toy on a matching rug.
So I had been wandering around feeling all my feels and hoping the biting, cold wind would suck away my angst. I’d been hearing some heavy equipment going beep around the ranch for a few days, and suddenly it was close. That messed up my bird recordings, which made me grumpier.
I heard a crack. Loud. Looking up I saw a backhoe zipping off to a pile of branches, carrying my Osage-orange tree, the only one on the ranch that’s on a part we will still own after Lee and Sara sell the cattle pastures at the end of the month. My tree, the coolest tree here, just got toted off.
I was steamed, as they would say in the old days. So I marched through the gate, dodging cow patties in my house slippers, with no coat on (it was about 36°), and went to find that backhoe or bulldozer or track-hoe or whatever it was. I found a very young stranger in it, and informed him he’d just killed my valuable tree (they are pretty rare, long story about settlers planting them, the wood being good for bows…). He said but it was dead. He was clearing dead trees from the tornado, as our tenant asked him to.
Former location of Bois D’arc tree.
The tree was not dead. It had leaves and produced horse apples this summer. It’s deciduous. Grr. But, I looked at the young man, who was just doing what he was told to do, and asked him to please not knock over any more living trees, especially around my pond, because I do nature research there. His eyes got big. Well, I do engage in research! I was doing so right then!
Kid getting the heck away from me. Or going to move stuff elsewhere. Hope it’s the latter.
Anyway I apologized for getting upset, and he said it was okay and called me ma’am dozens of times. This isn’t my time. Right now is not a good time to raise a ruckus about hippie stuff like trees. I sure feel old and helpless and expendable. besides, I need to stay under the radar, not act like a nutty tree hugger, even if I am a nutty tree hugger.
And nutty bird lover.
I’m not leaving you all, though. I want to share fun pictures and silly stories to bring some cheer, for all my non-old friends.
I just don’t feel like writing. I think that’s okay, because judging from my stats, no one feels like reading chatty blogs about nature and pets, either. Our thoughts are elsewhere. We’re concerned and distracted.
I think Carlton knows I’m not at my best. He’s really attached these days. Here he’s “helping” me check the rain gauge.
So, I wish you peace and safety. I’ll be back after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.
I’m hiding and hibernating this weekend, I guess, spending most of my time with birds and horses. That’s just fine with me.
The birds don’t mind, either.
I’ve made sure Apache gets his rides and cantering in before this big cold front arrives. Terry the farrier said Apache has muscles! Mabel has a cut on her hip area from an encounter with a tractor, so I’ve been monitoring that and putting ointment with honey on it. It’s better now, but here was its original state.
Ow.
All animals are as ready as I can get them for cold weather, with water, shelter, etc. I worry about Connie Gobbler, but the hen house should stay above freezing and I put electrolytes in the water bucket there, for her and the chickens.
Thanks!
Other than looking at birds, including a Vermilion Flycatcher today, I worked on my knitting. The border on last year’s temperature blanket is slowly growing (it’s 540 stitches long on the long end).
I have a very long circular needle for all those stitches.
And today I was able to finish the third row of January on this year’s blanket. It looks more like a calendar now. I’m ridiculously excited about this cold front bringing temperatures low enough to have some purple in them! I guess that will make up for having to wear so many layers for a while!
I’m loving all these cooler colors. The blue lazy daisy stitches equal .2” of rain each.
Ignoring the metaphorical elephant in the room (the room being my country) I’ll just share that I tried to paint my nails black, maybe with one nail with a little sparkle to symbolize hope. But when I put the set I’d picked out on, I realized it was actually dark green. There goes my mourning theme. I guess it’s now the dark embrace of the forest, with little ice crystals, which I put on all the nails.
See, not black. Evergreens in winter, I guess. Looks good against the controller of my free Apple TV.
I expect I’ll be slightly off kilter for a bit, but I’ll be here to support my friends and family, all of them. Have a good Sunday.
The Hermits' Rest 