daily life – Page 17 – The Hermits' Rest

A Risk I’m Wishing I Could Take

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

I did take a risk today, but I’ll get to that later. One I wish I could take is to go live somewhere I’d feel more comfortable. Every time I think about it I come back around to the sad truth that there is no Sunaland. Anywhere.

The coast of Sunaland, a mythical location. Photo from Pexels.

We keep thinking of different parts of the US. Last night it was somewhere in Central Pennsylvania. Earlier it was Wisconsin. Or whatever. Always too expensive, too far from medical facilities, blah blah.

Other countries? Sure. Ireland, Wales, or Sweden! But would they want us? They mainly want very wealthy people. I’m not sure we’re that. I want to live somewhere pretty rugged and in a small community. I’m just not brave enough to leave this place. I guess I’m settled where I am, even if I sometimes feel out of place.

Anyway, I was brave and took the risk of moving the horses to the field in front of the house. It still has some reasonable grass, which I thought they’d like.

Well, they liked the water trough we put in a lot. I’ve already had to refill it, due to splashing and slurping. Mabel and Drew like to splash.

There are LOTS of giant cocklebur plants in that field, and lots of woodland creatures to spook them. I hope they find the trees to be a good place to sleep. If they seem upset, I’ll put them back after my lesson tomorrow and give them a round bale of hay to eat.

It may just take a while to settle in. Horses aren’t fond of change.

Dusty, however, is quite fond of his own reflection.

Everyone here is tired because we had a guest last night, then people came to fix the bedroom slide in Seneca the motorhome, then much horse drama.

After all that, Lee and I voted, picking the perfect time when it wasn’t too crowded. I’m glad we got that done. It was fun to just skip uncontested contests where I dislike the candidate. By 2:30 over 300 people had voted in our town!

Goldie is pooped and so are the others! I must admit that I’m tired and peopled out myself!

Can I Be Lazy?

Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

Until my recent bout of Covid, I hadn’t had a lazy day in a long time. In recent years, I’ve just felt better if I was active. I just didn’t sit around a lot. when I was sick I genuinely had to just lay around. I hated it. But I did it.

It reminded me, though, that there is good in being still and not doing something for more than the daily meditation time. I’ve been trying to let myself have more time with no agenda and no “have to do” urges. I’m usually full of those.

Goldie says she just “has to” adorn the fake rug.

That’s the closest I get to lazy days. I am working to balance my daily agenda with more loose time hanging around with Lee or the horses. I think both man and beast enjoy me just being me. I do, too. And I think I feel rested!

Join us on this beach, Suna! (The pond is drying up.)

I think my productivity is better when I don’t stack activities on top of each other after all. I was getting pretty frenzied there for a while. I’m still getting in my steps and exercise, so I’m glad I’m feeling okay about not being so physically busy. It’s a more balanced approach.

Next: letting myself do nothing mentally when I’m not meditating. I’m always birding, knitting, reading, writing, editing, or something. Right now it’s helping me avoid intrusive thoughts about the near future. So I’ll keep my mind occupied until November.

PS: it finally cooled off! Today wasn’t hot!

From Birds to Bravery

I’m tired so this is quick. The two halves of my day differed greatly. In the first half, I spent a few hours at the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary with Ann. We got some excellent new birds to add to the list of sightings there, and did a bit of Bioblitz action as well.

We spent time with Gene and Cindy, who were working at selling chickens until we got to them to talk about wild birds. We went over designs for interesting benches to put out in the seating area to replace some rickety ones.

This is a Leopold bench, named after a famous naturalist who made them for bird watching.

We also talked about a logo. I’d used the AI software they want us to use at work to generate a few ideas. We are going with this one, with different colors.

It should be legible and look good in monochrome.

After all our decisions, I went into Cameron to the annual Steak Stein and Wine event. I got a couple of holiday gifts, which I’m proud of. Such a planner! And I got kettle corn, a snow cone, and later a peach Bellini, frozen. Mm.

As always, I enjoyed the car show. This is a Morris pickup truck conversion. Ooh. Want.

But I also was brave. I supported my friends y volunteering at the booth for the county Democratic Party. Why did I do this, if I’m avoiding politics? Honestly, it’s to let others know we are here and just normal people. We had no candidate signs or pamphlets, just a code you could scan to sign up for the mailing list. Mostly people ignored us or were polite, and we had a few nice conversations. Only after the drinking started did one guy get ugly, and I was gone by then.

I am proud for not totally hiding, to maybe encourage others to not be afraid. You shouldn’t be afraid in this country. I’m still going to respect your opinions if they differ from mine, especially if you’ve thought it out. we need to respect each other!

The event also included giant Dairy Queen treats!

I got to have dinner (the steak part of the festival) with family and workers at our nephew’s business. That means I got to see and talk to my son! And the food was better this year, especially the mashed potatoes.

All in all, it was a good, but long, day. I enjoyed seeing friends and acquaintances and was brave!

Bonus pretty photos to follow.

What? It All Worked Out?

It happens all the time to me. I get perturbed about a situation, but if I just give myself time, I can figure out a solution. I need to remember this for future perturbations.

I’ve no idea if I used perturbation right. But here’s a cute Fiery Skipper in a salt marsh aster.

Yesterday I found out my roommate for the upcoming Master Naturalist annual meeting had decided to get a room to herself. Now, as Suna, I would be hypocritical if I didn’t applaud someone who wanted to room alone. Heck, this was the first year I’d wanted a roommate, and I go on long trips alone. I get wanting a place to decompress!

This Dusky Skipper is here to tell you it’s time for the 2024 Texas Pollinator Bioblitz, so there will be many insects and flowering plants in here for the next few days.

The problem was that I’d messed up when registering for my hotel room. Because I wanted to arrive Wednesday, a day the hotel is full, I couldn’t use hotel points and had to reserve a full price. Then I realized I’d forgotten to book Saturday night. So, it was working out to be an expensive mess and I considered canceling, since I’ll have no one to hang out with.

I could hang with this guy. What an interesting wasp. It’s a Five-banded Thynnid wasp, I think.

But I thought, and thought, and at last my brain woke up and gave me the inspiration to contact Hilton customer support. So I got through to their Diamond member customer support. I told the agent my situation and she said she thought she could fix it. It took a while, but she was able to apply points for three of the nights, and get me the less expensive conference rate for that pesky Wednesday night (it’s still over $200—no wonder most of my colleagues aren’t going). To top it off, she exchanged my standard two-queen room for my favorite: the king corner suite. I just couldn’t stop thanking that nice and competent worker. She got a great review from me!

I’m happy as a Phaon Crescent that’s avoided the local Phoebes.

I felt like things took a turn for the better last night when I got a text from Tarrin after I’d already gone to bed. She said to go outside quickly. So I did. There was the aurora borealis dimly shining in the north! It may have been pale, but I’d never seen it before! And it looked really cool in photos.

I got all weepy and giddy at the same time. I’d always wanted to see the Northern Lights. Now I don’t have to go to Iceland to do it. Lee enjoyed it, too. I really should have texted others, but I was too awestruck. I’m glad Tarrin texted!

Bucket Lust (Anita said I had to leave this good typo) complete. That was the only thing left on it, now that I’ve also seen the Grand Canyon.

I’d also been sort of pouty that I had no one to do fun things with tomorrow afternoon, but now I do! I’m going to the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary to do my October bird count and should find friends there, then I’ll go help another group at the yearly Steak Stein and Wine event downtown. I’m glad they asked. I’m a sucker for feeling needed.

I’m also a sucker for gifts of flowers. Lee got me a chrysanthemum a couple of days ago. This, however, is feverfew.

Plus, I get to eat the steak dinner, because a space became available. I was ok not going, but it will be nice to go after all and see my son as a bonus.

Don’t be pouty! A beautiful moment might be coming right up.

The moral of today is to quit being pouty. Things will work out, or a better alternative will arise if you remember to make your own fun!

Now to keep on Bioblitzing…

Dog, in Brief

Goldie was a fine animal and went with Lee to get her stitches out so willingly. I wouldn’t fault her if she didn’t want to get in the car after all those vet visits. But she was happy to get in the car and to go into Dr Amy’s mobile clinic.

I bet it feels better to have the itchy stitches out. I’m hoping the pain is less and less and she can soon be off drugs. She’s getting around pretty well, but does tire easily. She’s building up muscles!

She also got medication for the place she keeps licking on her only front leg.

We are proud of her. She’s totally worth the expense. Now we will just enjoy her as long as we can. Same with Harvey. He can’t really walk in a straight line, but he’s moving at a good clip!

I’m feeling a bit lonely and a bit of a mess. But, it will pass.

I’m a small being on a big planet. And here’s the truth. We’re all alone, really.

Sometimes It’s the Little Things

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw this prompt was that I’d love to canter on one of my horses, to see what it feels like and finally go sorta fast. That’s just a little thing, but I’ve not moved forward in my skills enough to do it on Drew and Apache hasn’t moved forward in his skills enough. The one time I tried I ended up on the ground. I’m trying not to let myself get discouraged and enjoy the journey. But I’m human.

And I’m just a horse who won’t take my meds.

Little things can be good, though. For example, at the end of the work day I’d gotten to a good stopping point, and was looking out over my laptop as I sat at my porch “desk.” Something moved suddenly.

It was this absolutely adorable jumping spider, Phidippus arizonensis. I watched as it explored my laptop then jumped onto my mouse and checked out all my stuff. It waved its first legs around as it explored, and moved its mouthparts like it was tasting the air.

Okay, I think it’s a male. It has bulbous pedipalps. Those are the things that stick out in front.

I can see why people have jumping spiders as pets, because this fellow was very entertaining and not at all concerned by my presence. I prefer them in the wild, but I do enjoy the bold jumping spider who lives in the mailbox.

One of many around here. Too bad you can’t see the cool green eyes.

I’d never seen an arizonensis before, so I looked it up. It’s definitely confined to this part of the world.

I had the best time watching this spider. That’s living for the moment. Mindfulness for the win.

I did not enjoy observing this one. A black horsefly.

Another little thing that made my day was just watching the dogs play. With all the medical issues in our canine community it’s easy to forget the happy, healthy ones. Carlton and Penney love it when I’m outside so they can run and play with an audience!

Time to get some rest and talk to my high school friends in Florida who are going through the hurricane. I do keep up!

Carlton is ahead of me in the sleep department. He’s already dreaming.

Good Day at Hermits’ Rest

How about that? Things do sometimes work out. And that helped today end up being good. With this face staring at me while I worked, it couldn’t be all bad.

I want to put my head on your arm and press real hard, ok?

I was sitting in the bird watching chair early this morning when I noticed a very large cow was mooing at me softly. She had a weird look on her face, if that’s a thing cows can do.

When she turned sideways I realized she was about to give birth. A hoof was sticking out. I watched for a while then went inside for a meeting. When I set up my computer on the porch, I saw she still had one hoof and something pink sticking out. Hmm.

Many episodes of folksy veterinarian shows on Animal Planet have taught me well. There should be two feet, and labor should be quicker. So we texted her owners. I was worried that they would be tired of us telling them every time we see a laboring cow, but this time we were right to ask them to check.

We are ignoring her. We aren’t much help.

Once her owner got there they saw what I saw, and a difficult ballet of trying to move the cow began. That poor guy, who’s near my age, was sure hustling until he got the great idea to convince all the cattle to go where they are usually fed. Once there, he was able to get the laboring cow into a pen, and with his son, the other owner helping, they straightened the calf’s leg out. Then the birth was easy, and the cute spotted calf was alive!

I felt good knowing we’d helped a little. That made the work day fly by, too. I documented like crazy! I might even get my project done in time. Maybe. Having something to concentrate on has helped my mental state, too. All good! no negativity!

After working and doing horse work, Lee and I were able to relax by the pool and take advantage of the better weather. There was a pleasant breeze that was perfect for enjoying a beverage and petting dogs.

Looking forward to staying peaceful in our little ranch world.

Renovating the Motorhome, by Necessity

I promised I’d write more about Seneca, our motorhome. On our last camping trip the bedroom slide-out that makes a path to the bathroom and provides access to the drawers (such as they are) hasn’t worked.

It’s not a problem going to horse lessons, since there’s a half bath Lee could use if needed. But camping means shower access is useful, and to get there you have to crawl over the king-size bed. That’s hard on us elders.

Much effort has been put into trying to fix it. It turns out the batteries weren’t the issue. Or were fuses, though I believe fuses fixed the issue of lights on trailered vehicles not working properly. One issue fixed! Yay!

This has been referred to as the rats’ nest. No actual rats are in the very, but I vacuumed up mouse evidence.

The slide apparently has a short in it. My home mechanic/electrician figured out the diagnostic code by delving into the bowels of the system. But no one here at the ranch can do the repair. We will have to take it to a pro.

No photos of this, so here are my cool nails that can look green or purple.

But I hadn’t been camping in a while and wanted to go before we can get it in to get fixed. So, the clever men of the house came up with a plan and implemented it. I found it quite creative!

With the slide in, the base of the bed doesn’t stick out too far. The piece of wood above the base is what’s longer, to support the mattress, so needed to be removed and replaced with a shorter piece of plywood.

This is close to our floor plan, only the washing machine is in the bathroom in the 2022 model.

A twin mattress, which we happened to have one of in the former Airbnb, fits perfectly in the bed space, turned sideways. There’s a little more base hanging out, but that’s no problem (my guess is a double bed would have fit perfectly).

Once the setup was done, I put sheets on and turned the area into a cute daybed. You can easily get to the bathroom and I can sleep fine.

We’re lucky that Lee sleeps in a zero-gravity chair. That makes a single bed for me quite practical. We sure have customized Seneca to our idiosyncratic needs!

Lest we forget, the former dinette is now a desk. The living area is wider when its slide is fully expanded.

Tomorrow we do get to go. I had hoped to leave today, but there was a communication mixup. It will be fine.

Book Report: Tell Me Everything

I’ve been meaning to write about the latest Elizabeth Strout novel, and since I was wrong about going camping this afternoon, I suddenly have time. I guess I should have asked someone if we were leaving the day we originally planned. That’s what you get for making assumptions. I make an a** out of me. And, sigh, we have to leave a day early because I have jury duty Monday, I’m a bit pouty. I really want to go camping. We haven’t been in so long.

Must deal with these results of the investigation into why the bedroom slide won’t move. It needs professional help.

However, I did read this book, so let’s talk about Tell Me Anything (2024). As soon as I realized there was a new book in this series (I’ve reviewed them all on this blog, so you can search for Strout and find them), I ordered it. I was very interested to find out what was going on with the characters in Crosby, Maine, since the pandemic, so I dove right in. I was happy to see that this installment concentrated on good old Lucy Barton and her friend Bob Burgess, as they cope with a local murder.

As with most of Strout’s books, the plot is secondary for me. I just enjoy how she tells stories. Her style is so spare, and her use of repetition and the narrator jumping in with bits of information, just enough information. And as always, you get insights into how people think, act, and work from points of view you’d never considered before. I just love the pithy parts.

I underlined and marked many passages that I can no longer see, but my favorite one was this part of a conversation about the meaning of one of the stories two characters shared with each other:

That was about the same thing that every story Lucy and I have shared is about. People suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does. Those who think they have not suffered are lying to themselves.” p. 315.

Actual small town in Maine. Photo by Leah Newhouse on Pexels.com

The people in the book are also fun for me. They are all so fully formed, with wonderful features and fatal flaws. They are real in the best way. I love how married couples are treated here. They have days where their spouses get on their nerves, then days where they don’t know what they’d do without them. And there are divorced people who don’t hate each other, but are glad to no longer be married. It’s refreshing to be able to feel empathetic with human beings who can be inconsistent, think judgmental things about others, but still be doing their best. I feel less alone.

There’s always time for reflection, like the heron is doing. These books inspire you to reflect on universal truths and intimate insights.

One more thing is that I was glad to see that Strout introduced a few new characters, since the “old” ones are mostly getting old. Olive Kitteridge is now 93! I can’t wait to see how she weaves them into the continuing saga as she follows them on through the scary 2020s.

A Good Day!

See, I knew things would turn around if I was patient. Today was a normal day with plusses and minuses, but the positive things have helped me feel on a more even keel. When I’m more centered, challenges are easier to handle. You betcha.

First off, I needed to go check on Apache’s eye. Of course the horses were as far across the pasture as they could get, but that got me more exercise. Win! (Also hooray that I finally have energy after the Covid slump.)

Of course we’re far away. It’s where the burs are.

I was happy to see the eye looking so much better. Drew was happy that I set the fly mask down so he could mess with it while I wiped Apache’s eye. That boy is so full of mischief and fun.

It was a good start to the day to hug all the horse buddies, Then I listened to birds, as usual. And worked. (Why am I telling you my whole day? To show it was so much better.)

Dusty is a good listener. He’d read about my whole day if he could.

Then came a miracle! Someone finally came to fix the Direct TV antenna/dish thing! He was nice, competent, and fun. Lee even liked him. This came just in time, since I was totally out of bandwidth on my satellite internet, which kills streaming.

I have to be able to watch my precious football. It’s my not-so-secret vice.

The “fun” continued and I made vet phone calls. We’re working with Dr Brinlee on adjusting Apache’s medication. It is on the right track. And I called Goldie’s vet to straighten out the bill, which I did with no yelling. Hooray again.

Look at my long leg! It’s getting strong.

Lunch was a nice break after phone calls. I’m the head phone caller in the house and I sure am weary of it these days. Anyway, friends and taco salad were a great respite.

Back at home I enjoyed a welcome sight. I went out to the front porch and all the dogs came out with me. Yes, even Goldie. She’s getting the hang of smooth upward and downward transitions. She needs a lot of petting, but she is healing well physically.

She even went out and watched as Seneca the motorhome got worked on. It’s heartwarming to see her hanging out with her best buddy.

More on Seneca tomorrow. We get to go camping again this weekend! All animal medications are under control, we think. Things should be fine.

Ooh! Final good thing. I looked on the Viasat page where I’d had to buy more high-speed data, and lo and behold, there was now an unlimited plan I could use. It’s only $20/month more. I snapped that up immediately and now I can get my work done. It was painfully slow this morning. I’m sure glad I checked to see if I had options. I feel a little less clueless about all these modern necessities at the moment, with the phones, the television, and the internet connectivity all fixed. I did it all myself!

Ooh. My best AI picture yet. It’s internet connectivity!

Next: jury duty, vaccinations, and getting the car serviced. It’s always something.