I’m glad that last time the aurora borealis came to Texas I got to see it and get good photos. It was here last night, but I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I missed it.
I went out tonight more than once and was quite charmed by the glow to the north, but I think it’s the village of Ben Arnold.
The stars are pretty, though.
It was a beautiful evening, though, and much warmer than earlier this week. I love that it’s dark enough out here to see the Milky Way in photos.
Phone photo.
Thank goodness we have these chances to remind ourselves what an amazing setting we’re privileged to live in.
Yes, even crow poison is amazing, blossoming all winter.
Yeah, the weather here can go from 35° to over 80°F in one day, which is also impressive. our plants and animals must adapt!
Connie has neck feathers again after her awkward molting period Clint also looks much less scruffy. Doves are always chill. It’s starting to look autumnal. Time for the leaves to dump!
I wasn’t going to mention this, but it’s another impressive nature thing, to me. The past few days, hawks have been all over our property. Nearly every time I come outside, I disturb a Red-shouldered Hawk or a Northern Harrier. There’s no secret as to why: the rodent population is really high. I see all kinds of mice and rats everywhere I go lately. They hang around the chicken coop just waiting for the birds to go to bed so they can eat their food. Grr.
Ha! No mouse or rat photos, so here’s something I colored.
So, please, hawks, eat up. And thanks, dogs, for doing your part on rat patrol. I’m disappointed at how few the horses get, though. They should get busy going after mice instead of finding cockleburs.
One more mandala. Thanks to Lee for scanning them.
When I got home from Blanco, my “birding station” was just about finished, other than some painting.
The good news is that the siding is close to the right color before painting.
It has a cute little metal roof and gets lovely morning sun this time of year, which is good because it’s been close to freezing the last couple of nights. The siding keeps the cold wind off my legs while the sun warms my top half.
My chair is in there. I ordered a little stool and side table for my coffee, notebook, and binoculars.
Next I need to measure the openings so I can order bamboo blinds to block the sun in summer and when sunset is trying to blast my eyes.
Inside ceiling.
So far it hasn’t disturbed the wildlife. This beautiful moth visited yesterday.
Lunate zale moth
I also enjoyed visits from a Viceroy and Bewick’s Wren.
We approve of the little shed
Today’s visitor was larger. She was very curious about what the heck I was doing.
Hello?
I’m looking forward to enjoying the winter sparrows and wrens from my station, especially once it’s a little warmer. Harris’s Sparrows arrived today, so the gang’s all here!
Look, I’ve been earning my pay looking at computer screens, well, since they were invented (though I did work as a copy editor and proofreader using pencil and paper for a while). And I was an early handheld device adopter—playing Bejeweled on my Palm Pilot was a great stress reliever during my divorce.
Red pencils. Proofreader tools. Photo from Pexels.
This is to say, I have a good bit of screen experience (of course I have had television since Lassie was on every Sunday). I can’t avoid computer screens as long as I have paid employment in my field of tech writing, but I can try to limit phone use. Hey! I could stop blogging on my phone! Yes! No. It’s fun.
I used one of these babies. Monochrome display! Photo from Pexels.
You’d think my nature hobbies would help me escape screens, but the phone comes with me to take all my photos. But, hooray for me, since I’ve taken to leaving my phone outside listening to birds on Merlin Bird ID, I can’t doom scroll for many hours. Weird but it works. Of course, the phone thinks I’m looking at is and racks up time that makes me look glued to the phone, but I’m not!
And of course I read a lot and do all those crafts. So I’m okay with my screen time. Oh, and I make sure not to open up my Finch self-care app more than 2-3 times a day. One can get sucked in.
Apparently I have used Finch every day since I got it, though.
My point? I don’t think looking at screens is a terrible problem for me. If I’m learning, earning money, interacting with friends, or seeing the beauty in the world, screens do me good. My area of caution is to not read or watch content designed to upset me or insult me. I read one or two posts a day from my incendiary friends (both left and right), then I just move on as soon as I see where content is headed.
That’s it. I just stop. Over generalizing about groups or factions? I keep moving. Mean? Skip. Blatantly wrong but not open to other viewpoints? No response. It works. Now I mostly see trees, horses, chickens, yarn, jokes, and for some reason makeup for “mature” skin (which I don’t wear). Just don’t engage unless you think you can accomplish something.
Enough of that. I would have shared how nice the spot we are staying in at Blanco State Park is, but by the time we figured out the latest issue with Seneca the motorhome and I finished working, it was dark. Ugh. The chassis battery is dead. We could recharge it by starting the generator, but that hasn’t worked for months. Have I mentioned that recreational vehicles are prone to breaking? Yes. It’s true.
Attractive sycamore leaf
So yay, we are camping with no air conditioning! So primitive! And no TV! (too dark to set up the system). No, we are just fine, other than the occasional acorn dropping on the roof.
My last post mentioned that I didn’t want to do a lot of the self-promotion and marketing (and shilling for businesses) that stereotypical influencers do. I find it boring, repetitive, and fake.
Nonetheless, I know of a few people who make money from their online presence but avoid the influencer pitfalls. They manage to promote themselves while providing interesting or fun content, and genuinely give back more than they earn in subscriptions or however they earn. If I ever were someone with an adoring fan club, these would be my role models.
Here are three examples of people whose writing, photographs, and “brand” I enjoy. There are more, and I’ll mention them later when appropriate.
My favorite influencer is Franklin Habit, someone I’ve actually met because I took a class or two on knitting from him. He’s a creative knitter, builder of miniature houses, artist, and comic essayist. Reading about his life for the past many years has been a lot of fun. He can be sweet, generous, prickly, and sad all in one piece of writing. And he does NOT hesitate to say what he thinks is wrong in the world (often hilariously).
What I admire most in Habit, though, is his ability to share his life stories yet manage to reveal nothing whatsoever about his personal life. That takes skill. Even if you aren’t a knitter, you might enjoy his adventures in his adopted country, France, and his surprising hobbies. I happily give his Patreon account some money every month.
He wrote this cute book.
A newer favorite, who more obviously has a drive for marketing, is Misha from dontcrosssagayman. He’s “everyone’s gay best friend” (not mine, because I already had one before I found Misha). He loves selfies, sashays his way through Austin, Texas, and is very sweet to his adoring crowd of “besties” who really seem uplifted by him. Like Franklin Habit, he doesn’t hesitate to give his opinions and tsk-tsk folks who do him or others wrong. But he seems genuinely sweet and always looking for ways to be kind to others (in a sometimes self-promoting way). I find he gives me good ideas for good deeds and just knowing he’s out there flying his rainbow flag gives me hope for this world. At least he’s influencing for good.
This man has many faces and hairstyles.
Finally I want to encourage everyone to be influenced by Rev. Jim Rigby, who is the person who’d be my minister if I could do any organized religion again. His version of Christianity, which focuses on being like Jesus was, is admirable, and his analysis of current events is very thoughtful. He’s another one who gives me hope and encouragement to keep moving forward. I’m very jealous of my friends who get to go to his church in an Austin suburb. (note to all my Progressive Christian clergy friends: you all inspire me with your efforts to fight the tide of groups and institutions that are Christian in name but not deed.)
If Nature weren’t my church, I’d go here )they have other good leaders, too)
I’m done with influencers for a while. I just got an urge to figure out what I think of them. I guess I conclude that if someone has thousands of followers but is encouraging them to be better people, then I’m fine with them influencing.
Pause to look at autumn grasses.
Now for a funny photo of me for my dear Donita
I got my hair trimmed and now see how thin it is. Wah. I’m no Misha in my Mr Peabody glasses and weird straight hair. I don’t recognize myself. I’m also done with selfies.
Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone is interested in that “career path.” I’m familiar with a few interesting people who have or would like to become internet celebrities. More than one of them has mentioned feeling weary of trying to stay “on brand” and repeating their talking points (or whatever influencers call them—remember I’m not one). Oh, and artificially big lips and eyelashes, which I assume look good to the influencer subculture.
It’s a look, all right.
Early on in my time writing blogs (I’m not sure I’m really a blogger, either), it became clear to me that there was a formula the successfully monetized blogs all followed. There’s a lot of mentioning products so they can get paid in goods, and there’s lots and lots of teasing and bloviating before taking you to the “interesting” content so you have to plow through ads. That doesn’t sound like writing or sharing. It’s marketing. Yuck.
It’s like you have to make a new fake you. This is definitely a fake me.
I like to write things that interest me. I don’t have a brand, unless it’s quirky older woman goes on and on about nature and personal growth. I do have cute animals, but they don’t often do anything totally precious enough to have their own fan base.
Carlton’s most crazed look and he doesn’t even need Snapchat.
Like cats, my animals generally only have one expression, so every photo of a chicken, turkey, horse, or dog in my blog looks the same. It would be hard to influence anyone with this material to work with.
I look like this every day, unless I’ve been fighting, says Carlton
Of course that’s fine. I don’t want my social media presence to be a job. Whenever it veers that way, I veer back to just sharing stories about a rural-life newbie and her unswerving desire to become a good person who enjoys life however she can. That will not garner 200K of fans.
But it’s the real Suna. Rumpled but content.
I think I may want to influence you to share my quest for peace, love, and kindness. In these challenging times, we all can use some inspiration, so if I cheer anyone up, give someone a new idea, or make a reader chuckle, that’s enough for me.
This is intended to make you chuckle. It worked for me.
Thanks for your contributions to cheering ME up! I needed it after my day of breaking browsers and enterprise software products. It really WAS a Monday today.
I worked long hours today and had a great time talking to the people I was helping one on one. It feels so good to be useful and make things easier on folks learning complex software solutions.
I think skippers are cute.
Now my introvert self has kicked in and I’m worn out. Gotta rest up to do it again tomorrow.
Besides, I spent most of my blogging time chatting with a friend. Personal conversations are healthy!
Dainty Sulphur. You know it’s small—these are tiny asters
Also uplifting: there were 58 bird species here today! That’s a tie for the record at Hermits’ Rest. It helped that I was listening so early that I caught the owls hooting.
Good night/morning.
Bonus photo of New Mexico, where Lee went for a visit this week.
Yes, there was fun to be had on this chilly, blustery day. Did I say chilly? Well, the high didn’t get above 70°F, which is welcome. However, the wind made it feel colder, prompting a friend to ask if it was too soon to ask for summer back. Um, yes, I’m afraid it is. Tomorrow will be fairly cold, so I’m hoping the wind will die down.
It ruffled my feathers.
As for fun today, discovering the horses in the driveway again wasn’t part of it. I had to brave the gales to go shut the main gate, all the while wondering how in the HECK the gate got open, since I strongly remember fastening it. No photos. They looked just like last time.
Yep. They looked just like this.
Verifiable fun occurred during my birding time, when I plopped my chair on my unfinished birding station and watched a parade of geese, ducks, and cranes fly over, followed by a cat creeping to the pond and making the Kingfisher and Great Blue Heron upset. (Kingfisher seems to have moved in for a while).
The cat, fleeing when Carlton barked. Kingfisher and friends. Even though it’s blurry, you can ID this guy!Cardinal doesn’t want to be a cat meal. Grr feral cats.
Plus, I finally saw some migrating Monarchs. None of my better flowers are blooming, so I’m not seeing as many as Austin friends are. I hope the wind didn’t mess them up.
That’s the only one that stopped!
I also had fun at work, because I like both projects I’m working on, one writing and one helping folks. I enjoy the conversation.
The real fun, though, came when I opened the huge collection of acrylic markers I just bought. A whole new world of things I can doodle on has opened up, along with the possibility of ruining many things. So far I put flowers on a pair of glasses that needed some rejuvenation. They look better than I feared, thought not “fine art.”
This tones down the silver in the frames. Or at least that’s my claim So many colors
I sat there wondering if I could decorate my ugly plastic headband. Yes, I could. It ended up looking nice with my blue hair.
Just plopped on colorsLooks good on. I used a hair masque and wow my hair is shiny.
I also put identification in a subtle silver on my new binoculars and their bag, hoping not to have these wander away.
The decorations were fun to do. I just have to resist the urge not to decorate every object in my home. I’ll try to just decorate rocks or something. Many people paint rocks.
Dogs would prefer to remain unpainted.
My final fun was crocheting away while watching Elspeth so far this season. I will next watch Matlock. I like shows with quirky older protagonists. I feel okay not boycotting CBS, since Colbert was on Elspeth. So there.
Speaking of crochet, I finally have my temperature blanket through September. I look forward to months with more green and yellow…maybe even blue?
More thoughts on why I’m encouraged will be shared tomorrow. Ooh, passive voice! Reminds me to go finish reading The Language Puzzle, my current book.
I was musing about the birds I see every day around the Hermits’ Rest. I know we have summer birds, like Painted Buntings, and winter birds, like White-crowned Sparrows, as well as migrants who stay for a few days and head on their way to a final destination, like the warblers. But those weren’t my focus.
The White-crowned Sparrows are back, and I get to hear their beautiful call.
The birds I was thinking about are the ones I think of when I picture a “bird” in my mind. It’s just a few, and those species have followed me in Florida, Illinois, and Texas. These are birds I expect to see every day and feel a bit off if I don’t (luckily most of these are also in the other places I’ve lived in more than a few days, like South Carolina and Colorado).
I had no trouble finding today’s Bird of the Day!
To me, these friends are my daily companions:
Cardinal
Mockingbird
Blue Jay
House Sparrow
Wren (mostly Carolina)
Chickadee (Carolina here)
Dove (Mourning or other)
Crow
Mockingbirds have followed me my whole life, usually right outside my bedroom window.
When I was in that college campus and mostly indoors last week, I missed my birds. The universities I attended had all these birds, so I’m sure there are some on the Texas A&M campus, just not where I was.
I was hiding. Photo from Pexels.
I usually also see Black and Turkey Vultures, herons, Killdeer, Titmice, and a blackbird of some kind, but these seem exotic or special. Even the woodpeckers I see most days aren’t generic birds—they’re cool exotics in my mind. As are my beautiful bluebirds! It must be that these common birds weren’t in my parents’ back yard when my young brain was categorizing animals.
Lee says his childhood generic bird was a chicken.
I just assume the usual gang will show up every morning and don’t get excited until something seasonal or more rare appears, like a raptor or flycatcher.
This is my most thrilling sight from both yesterday and today. Beautiful bird.
But I do love my daily bird friends. They are always entertaining and fun to watch, even if I know their habits well. For example, I know a Cardinal from its loud wing flaps and a Chickadee by what it does to tree branches when feeding. And I know all their songs. So many different calls and songs come out of some of those little beaks!
These are some winter birds from last March. Each one makes various chirps, calls, and songs, which are so much fun to learn.
After thinking about how find I am of everyday birds, I got to wondering what the typical daily birds are elsewhere. How about where you live? What are your most familiar birds?
I’m relieved to say I no longer have itchy stitches above my left eye. And yes, I removed them myself with clean (Anita asked, so you might also) nail clippers. One snip and out they came, saving me a couple of hours of travel and a visit to a place with scary germs.
Not bad! I’m almost healed.
I was surprised at how little the scar shows up. The stitch holes look worse than the cut. I know I’m a good healer, so I don’t think I’m deformed. It’s still swollen and tender, so I don’t plan any rash actions in the near future.
I’ll stick to artsy photos of dead thistles.
I did take my hurt black glasses over to Marvina’s House of Optical Whimsy (not its real name) to see if they could be fixed, but alas, the hinge is dead. So I made myself feel better by picking out some new (more whimsical) black frames and…maybe more whimsy. I do love eyeglasses. So does Marvina. Tomorrow I’ll get my eyes examined and patiently (not) wait for new frames. I just hope my prescription hasn’t changed so I can still use my other glasses.
So many choices. I chose none of these.
Other than bird drama (Sandhill Cranes, a marauding Harrier, and a friendly Bewick’s Wren) today was calm. The big rain isn’t here yet, all livestock are great, and work is dandy.
Such a friendly little guy.
I’ll stop before I make more typos. Sorry about the recent ones, for you email subscribers, but at least my friend Sue R finds them so I can fix them on the website. It takes a village!
Where to start? The day started out good and kept getting better. Look at this sunrise!
Hello to the day
And I was happy to see yesterday’s new calf and mama cow looked much perkier this morning and nursing was going well. I think they’re fine.
Thank you for your concern, humans.
I also felt better today, after a slow start. Maybe my head is healing. I’m at least able to do complicated tasks at work.
This strong singer helped wake me up.
After work came the best part of the day, very healing and gratifying. Jackie came to do bodywork on Apache, and I decided to see if she could maybe help out Drew, too. He’d been pretty good recently.
After grooming my sweaty Paint boy, I brought Drew out and proceeded to groom him. He was fine. So, as we waited for Jackie, I got to work on his tail, which, sigh, was full of burs, thanks to the horses grazing in the only spot that still has them (I couldn’t even see them when I called them in to eat; I just heard thundering hooves until they came around the pond). With no trouble at all, I got that tail all smooth and shiny.
See? Nice.
After Jackie arrived and started working on Apache, who she says is doing very well, I bravely approached his mane, sprayed detangler, and started brushing. There weren’t too many burs, but they came out with no issues. THEN he let me get burs out of his forelock! And asked to have his head rubbed!! What the heck?
I’m all groomed.
That was the start of a wonderful afternoon with Droodles. Perhaps the Adequin (or however you spell it) really kicked in and he feels better. But we had a nice bit of exercise in which he walked, trotted, and cantered pretty calmly, followed by some hand grazing and bonding. I could stroke him, rub his head, let him nuzzle my hand…no scary biting or kicking! Wow!
Zzzz. This is relaxing.
And he did a good job with the bodywork. When he wanted to say he was uncomfortable, he did, but Jackie could calm him right back down so he could stretch or whatever she asked him for.
This is Drew all relaxed getting worked on.
Afterwards, she showed me how she used calming breaths and distraction, while keeping herself safe. My mind was blown. I can do that! And it’s more how I’d like to work with him. This information was invaluable and encouraging.
Stretching exercise. She let him move around until he was able to bend. That must have felt nice.
We also had a great talk about how long it takes to create a great partnership and a great horse. Her story of Jambo, her horse who just retired, has inspired me. Maybe I can keep going slowly with Drew, work on the ground some more, make sure his pain is managed, and we can go forward.
Look at us all happy. He is not biting me.
I just have to get both horses to the vet to get assessed. Now that I feel less head pain, I will get to work. And maybe I can go back to enjoying both horses. It was SO nice to have a good day with Drew.
I had fun, too.
And one final good part of the day: IT RAINED. I think it was enough to measure, and will know more tomorrow. It was so exciting that Kathleen and I ran out to check for raindrops in the pool. We hope more substantial rain comes tomorrow, since it’s badly needed.
The Hermits' Rest 