daily life – Page 41 – The Hermits' Rest

Hi There, Ranch Neighbors

Yesterday I wrote about farming, about which I don’t know much. Today I enjoyed residents of our greater ranch community, which I understand a bit more, and always get much peace and pleasure from.

I was delighted to see that the folks whose cattle live here had put some cows and their older calves out behind us. I recognize many of them, which is kind of cool. Some cows have been here since these folks first came here.

The cattle brought some friends with them, a little flock of cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis). These small herons have spread across the world as farming practices have made their lives easier. They hang out near cattle and other large mammals and keep them free of insects and ticks.

Their expansion is fairly recent. I remember them being an exciting newcomer when I was a small child in north Florida’s cattle country. Mom loved to see them sitting on the Brahma and Hereford cattle.

The resident great egret is graciously sharing the pond. I’m not sure how the green herons are taking it. I haven’t heard them in a couple of days.

This afternoon, after a change in plans, I went over to Sara’s to see how her horses are getting along. Of course, this entailed much time oohing and aahing over Jhayati, who I hadn’t seen in a while.

She’s 2.5 months old and already getting gray hairs. Sara says that means she probably got two copies of the gray gene. She’ll finish graying out before Drew does!

Love the shape of her face, which is typical of an Andalusian.

Her coat is softer than velvet, and she’s very friendly. Sara’s doing a great job slowly teaching her life skills. Meanwhile, her mom, Sully, spends a lot of time pointing out that she is beautiful and needs to be petted, too.

The lead rope setup is what Tarrin recommended to Sara. And how about that tie dye! She made it.

Aragorn pretends the foal doesn’t exist, which is cute and probably right for the Head Horse, but the other horses are helpful. I really enjoyed my visit, though it sure was hot. Mornings are much better horse time, even if mine aren’t thrilled at first.

You can see gray on her face. She’s also shedding baby hair, so it’s a bit awkward.

I guess that’s it for the ranch neighbor report. It’s so hot and dry that we just can’t drum up any excitement. That’s absolutely fine with me.

Harvest Time

Since I was raised in towns and cities, I have had limited farming experience. Typical American, I guess.

Now, I had more than some people, since my dad’s best friend when I was little had a cool farm, where he raised corn, tobacco, sugar cane, cattle and hogs. It’s where I met my first real horse, Babe, a gray mare. I especially loved the hogs, because they were very friendly and were quite colorful. Some had curly coats.

And my favorite memories are of harvests. Blackberry picking at the abandoned chicken coop was fun for all us kids, but the most exciting was the sugar cane harvest. Oh my gosh, that was noisy, busy, and sugary. It was such a treat to sample the fresh cane juice and suck on a cane. I’m so glad my brother and I got to see this.

In grad school, I lived in an urban oasis in the middle of huge corporate farms in Illinois. Where the town stopped, corn and soybeans began. I learned a lot from the endless TV commercials for herbicides, fertilizers, and hybrid seed, even if I wasn’t a farmer. Driving through Illinois at night during harvest time in the fall was spooky, because you’d see immense combines out in the friends with bright lights, plus all the trucks lined up to take corn or beans off to be sold and stored.

Here in Texas, I’m learning a bit about ranch work by living next to our cattle lease. There isn’t much farming here in Walker’s Creek, so mostly I watch corn, cotton, and other crops being grown from a distance.

However, there’s one cultivated field across the road from us that belongs to the folks across the street. I think some elected official farms it. They rotate crops, like good farmers.

Last year it was cotton. I hate cotton years, because they spray herbicides, which messes up me trying to grow anything. This year I believe the crop is sorghum, which they also call maize here. It’s been really pretty the last few weeks, as it’s a reddish orange.

Harvest started yesterday, and since I am a city person, I’ve enjoyed watching the process. First a really big piece of equipment showed up in two pieces. One harvests the seed and the other holds the harvest. The whole deal is pulled by a tractor, I think. Or the tractor just pulled the harvesting thing over here.

Hoppers showed up next. The big harvester shoots sorghum into the hoppers periodically, then goes out and gets more seeds. Soon, very large semi trucks arrive, and all the hoppers get emptied into them. They take the grain away to wherever grain goes.

It’s really cool to watch the harvest. And yes, we don’t harvest in the autumn. This stuff and corn are both harvested in July, since it never rains in the summer. They’ll put in a cover crop or something in a little while.

I’d know a lot more about the harvesting if I just asked someone, but I’ve had more fun just watching and trying to figure it out for myself. Like I have mentioned many times, I’m easily entertained.

And I learned more about sorghum by going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and reading Sorghum 101 (linked above). I learned not all of it is sweet and there are a lot of different kinds for different uses, like animal feed, flour, and biofuel, not to mention sugar from sweet sorghum. By the way, the US is the leading producer of this crop.

Anger Is Not My Friend

I don’t get angry often. My dad, who was usually funny and kind, scared the poop out of me when he got angry. And I’d cry. I ended up trying to avoid volatile people my whole life and still cope very poorly with being shouted at, even when I’m just perceiving it that way. One of my many “areas for growth.”

Birds are gathering here. Swallows on the front porch roof.

Because of all this, I’m terrible at expressing anger. I either cry or am so scary that I get criticized and berated for it. I try to let things go, breathe, and not let things beyond my control get to me. Until I don’t.

I regret to say I got angry and yelled at two people today. One person I really shouldn’t have expressed anything to, even though I wasn’t wrong to get upset. I’d repeatedly asked for something not to happen but it did anyway and I got a huge feeling of powerlessness and loss so I uncharacteristically yelled. Ugh. I should have just gone inside and cried over what I lost. Nothing will bring it back.

This kind of anger isn’t simple. Sadness and grief were I’m loved. There were underlying annoyances that I’d been keeping to myself that burst through. Not my finest moment, and I’ll have to be apologizing for not keeping things to myself better.

The second time I got angry was simpler. I was driving to lunch and came to the big four-way stop sign at a major-ish intersection not far from the ranch. This stopping place has red flashing lights, stop signs that frantically blink, and signs saying stop ahead.

I was slowing down, you know, to stop, as one does, when a big, white SUV flew through the intersection at over 70 mph (speed limit had lowered to 60 before the sign). The vehicle did not slow down one bit, and after I blew my horn, I watched it continue down the road at the same rate of speed until it finally stopped at a red light. I was glad to see the car had brakes.

That light, and a convenient slow truck ahead of the SUV enabled me to catch up to it and get a photo of the license plate. If you know this guy, tell him he could have killed someone today.

When we got to the main intersection in town, I needed to turn right, while SUV guy needed to turn left. I pulled up and saw an elderly fellow. I honked my horn and yelled “Please stop at stop signs!” Like that did any good at all.

Everyone at lunch said he probably wondered what was wrong with that hysterical old woman in the sporty car. He probably thought I was having hormonal issues.

Hmm. I do look a bit manic or like Goldie just passed gas nearby. Or like my dad. I’m angry Mr Kendall reincarnated.

I shouldn’t have road raged at the guy. I’m in Texas. He could have shot me. I have remained calm the rest of the day and will figure out how to make amends.

No one’s perfect. I’m sure not. And maybe it was the heat. 106° today. But I need to learn not to beat myself up for being human and be gentle with myself (and others). Sigh. Enough navel gazing. I can try again tomorrow.

Am I an Expert?

On what subject(s) are you an authority?

I read this blogging prompt and it made me say, “Hmm.” I hesitate to declare myself an authority on anything. Why? I know perfectly well that there’s always more to learn about anything. Perhaps folks who are authorities just know a lot more than most people, and my supposition that authorities think they know it all is just a prejudice of mine. I’m no authority on authorities!

I’m an authority on the art of barking all night and sleeping all day.

I also hesitate to declare myself an authority on any topic because it feels like bragging or trying to come off as better than others. To the contrary, I’ve noticed that each of us has areas of expertise, thanks to having strong interests in a specific area. My vast knowledge of knitting is no better or worse than Lee’s vast knowledge of Stoic philosophy. We like what we like.

All right then, so what do I think I know enough about that people might consult me if they have questions? (That’s my working definition of authority.)

English grammar and punctuation. I can be quite helpful or irritating on this topic. Dudes, I studied this for decades and then became an editor. I’m trying to lighten up in my old age. And since I was trained in linguistics, I’m completely at ease with having different guidelines for different contexts. I’m not going to pick on people for making mistakes, especially on social media. I make plenty of goofy errors myself when typing on the phone.
Teaching knitting and crochet. I no longer do it often, but I’m darn good at it. No, I’m not a design authority or the greatest knitter ever, but I’m a good teacher.
Plants and animals on my property. Yes. I’m the authority on that. No argument on this one, no doubt because no one else cares as much. I’ve got this endless blog and my iNaturalist observations to back me up. I’m still learning, though.

That’s about it. If you have other ideas, let me know. I’d also be interested if you could share which of your areas of interest have led you to become an authority.

Though I have devoted many hours of my life on it, I am no authority on nail polish. I did do a particularly good job applying this set of polish strips.

Bee Whisperer

Lately I attract bees. When I’m in the pool, honeybees land on me and drink drops of water off my skin. I do provide them with bowls of water with rocks in them, but I guess I’m more fun. They do tickle.

This is a long-legged fly, not a bee (*Condylostylus caudatus*), but it has a stinger.

I occasionally get a wasp, too. Nothing ever bites, since I sit still. I’m more choosy about wasps than bees.

These will not be allowed sit on my finger. Nor do they want to.

But today I made a new bee friend. She was a leaf cutter bee. She was so shiny!

She just kept buzzing me, so I stood still and let her explore. In return, I got to look at her up close enough to see her abdomen expand and contract, and her mouth parts checking me out.

Now she’s on my finger. I was trying to catch the iridescent shine on her wings.

She preferred my right hand, which made getting pictures harder, but that’s okay. I just enjoyed the interlude of peace. There are many similar bees, but I hope she’s the pugnacious leaf cutter bee (Megachile pugnata), because that’s such a fun name. Whatever she is, I adored her yellow belly.

I even made a video (with blurry parts), so you can see her pulsating.

Non pugnacious leaf cutter bee

It’s this, folks, that makes life worth living. Knowing we can connect like this with fellow inhabitants of our planet makes me feel whole, even in crazy times. There’s something new and unexpected everywhere you look.

Grateful for Little Smiles

I’ve been needing something to smile about lately, and the Universe has provided. First, I’m grateful to have spent a few low-stress days with my household members, with lots of laughs and encouragement. You can’t beat that!

Even Lee’s ice cream bucket was smiling.

Besides that, one of my niggling worries is much lessened now. It looks like I’ll have another year at my job. Such good news! I do like my job and the people I interact with, for which I am also truly grateful.

My portulaca plants are growing, which makes me glad!

I’ve watched friends being kind and supportive of each other all week. In today’s combative climate, small things like opening doors for strangers, giving tokens of affection, and offering to help someone struggling mean a lot. I can’t be specific but it’s helpful to make the effort to notice these things, and to instigate them when you get a chance!

Lee made me this image. That was nice. It’s a scan of part of a poster.

What little things made you smile today? It’s worth the effort to try to recall those moments and appreciate them. Since I take so many photos, I can share a few more with you.

Enlarge to see the cheerful wiggly honey mesquite seed pods

A Weekend for Me

This entire weekend I did stuff I wanted to do, when I wanted to. Now, that’s relaxing! Even sweeping the chicken house and getting rid of feed bags was done on MY time. I didn’t breathe poop, by the way. Lesson learned.

I do have a funny horse story. I was out in the pasture heading to bring in Apache, who still likes to play hard to get. I know I’m sending off good vibes, because every other horse comes right to me. And that’s what was funny. Fiona had already latched on to my side as I walked to Apache. Suddenly I heard thundering hooves, then in a puff of dust, Drew’s head appeared directly beside my face. He was just SURE I was looking for him and he was concerned he was late, because he had to pee. Obviously I have no trouble catching Drew. Eventually I once again had to maneuver around three horses and a donkey who were dying for me to take them off to be groomed.

They are all right there. Happy to see me.

Now, once Apache decides he’s ready, he is no trouble at all, and seems to enjoy walking around, being groomed, and riding. He just wants to be the one to decide it’s time to go do stuff.

I’m working on letting Suna be the boss.

He’s so much fun, though. I’m not complaining at all. We have had many years to develop this relationship, so we’ll keep working and I’ll enjoy the ride, literally.

I got a bath, so I could roll and get all dirty again five minutes after this picture was taken.

The rest of today, like yesterday, was spent knitting, floating in the pool, napping, and hanging out. Lee, Anita, and I even got to go out for dinner! My sour cream enchiladas were great, plus they didn’t mess with the temporary crown I need to keep in until Friday.

Naturally, ha ha, I took some nature pictures. This little garden spider got quite a catch!

The aviary kept me all excited again today, though. We got to watch the wren feed her brood and enjoy all those fledgling barn swallows darting and swooping along with their parents. They seemed pretty proud of themselves to be able to sit on the light fixtures.

And to top it all off, there were more genuine clouds in the sky tonight (there were some yesterday, too, but no rain).

That led to an amazing moonrise and sunset. The moon was pretty such a short time. I’m glad I was taking my time and enjoying everything that came along tonight and the rest of the weekend.

It may be time for a new Facebook cover photo.

I hope you have a good week and that the weekend refreshed and renewed you, even a little. I certainly needed some time to reflect and treat myself kindly after beating myself up a bit last week!

I felt like the heron. At home in my place.

Drew Is a Big Boy Now!

They aren’t joking when they say time flies when you’re having fun. And Andrew “Droodles” Kendall is nothing but a big bundle of fun on four legs. As of next Saturday, he will have been with us for two years. And we count that as his “birthday,” since his teeth tell us he should be just about five years old right now.

We’ve been getting our exercise in early in the day, whenever possible, due to the extreme heat and my issues with it. In the afternoons, I’ve been feeding while wearing a wet bathing suit, which really intrigues Drew. He seems to like the smell of pool water (good thing we don’t have a heavily chlorinated pool).

This morning I went out to spend some time with the soon-to-be birthday boy and give him some special time, to show him how grateful I am to have my special gray friend in my life. Wow, he’s changed so much from a skinny dark gray guy who couldn’t use his back legs effectively to a strong and capable companion who’s getting lighter by the day.

So beautiful and talented for a little guy.

After our groundwork and ride, the birthday fun began. I rinsed Droodles off under the hose, which he was really fond of. He especially liked getting his neck cooled off, which makes sense given his thick, hot (but gorgeous) mane. But the part that he liked the very best was drinking from the hose, which of course there are no photos of.

Once he figured out how it work, he took charge of the hose by clamping his teeth on the end and sucking down the water. He must have drunk a gallon of water that way. I didn’t want him to overdo it, so I took the hose away, which he seemed a bit sad about.

He perked right back up when he realized he got to graze on some of the remaining green grass over by the tack room. He did a fine job trimming the grass as he cooled off. But I knew there was one more item on his birthday bucket list.

As soon as I let him loose in the pen area, he drank more water (geez, he hadn’t sweated that much!), then started walking with his nose down. I knew what that meant.

Sure enough, down he went for a good roll. No horse likes to be clean for long, I guess. More likely, I think, when they are wet they can get dirt to stick to them and keep away flies. I sure enjoyed watching his birthday roll (as did Fiona).

I’m thinking back on the day we went and got him, how sad he looked way out in the middle of nowhere near where Lee’s dad’s farm was. As I wrote out a check for $1050 I was already hoping he could be my companion the rest of my life and a good buddy for Apache. I think that’s working out! What a good little horse he’s becoming.

PS: Remember the baby barn swallows I shared a couple of days ago? Well, today two of them have fledged. I’m sure these other two will be out catching their own bugs by the end of the afternoon. So cool.

Bloggers Need Topics

I don’t have a topic today. Things are going along all right, with few exciting developments that I can talk about. That’s not bad at all. We all need some mostly drama-free periods in our lives.

The best thing about today was that there were a few clouds in the sky. The heat dome is moving away at last, and we will be back to normal levels of hotness.

The grass is turning it’s normal summer brown, though, and I saw my first cracks in the dirt today.

I’ve managed to not get too hot this week by doing horse things early, when I have no early meetings, and feeding the horses in a wet bathing suit. Hey, no one can see me! And Drew likes the pool water smell.

I like the smell of fresh trough water, myself.

Mostly I’ve been going through one of my awkward periods where I express myself poorly and upset people, or feel like a fifth wheel in conversations. I know when I start feeling bad about myself that it’s time to apologize, remind myself I’m as good a person as I can be, and to remember that sometimes your best isn’t good enough.

Yes, then I need to think about Apache and how long my well-meaning efforts weren’t enough for our relationship, but with some help, we got to communicate better. I’ll just listen to helpful people about remedying my faux pas and maybe do some improvements in interpersonal relationships. Being a hermit who wants to make friends is complicated!

Let’s talk about knitting. I finished row 2 of the second unit of the giant temperature blanket and can see it was warming up quickly once May rolled around (after the black square). We got our first red squares, which are over 90°. I was thinking today that I could enter the first bit in the art contest at the Master Naturalist conference. It’s a piece of citizen science, after all. I’d have to type up a nice legend and explanation.

One more piece is f good news is a volunteer tomato plant. It’s with the squash behind the chicken house. Just hope no one mows it! I keep forgetting to mark the “plants” as opposed to cockleburs.

I hope you’re all doing well. Please know that I care about you all, appreciate your feedback, and love hearing your own stories.

What’s Up with the Hermits’ Rest Aviary?

The fact that it’s boiling hot (figuratively) outside has not stopped our local birds from churning out new little bug-eating machines. Who am I to stop them? Besides, they’re darned entertaining!

The beautiful barn swallows may not get all the publicity that purple martins get, but their shiny navy blue backs, orange breasts, and striking forked tails entertain us just fine.

They are everywhere, eating bugs and feeding babies.

I sure enjoy watching them. It’s fun watching them build nests and raise babies. We must have a dozen nests around our house. They build mud nests in high places. Bridges are very popular, but so are the very front porches suburban homes. People in my old neighborhood hated them. They do poop a lot.

I’m glad we get more of the barn swallows every year, even with the poop. All you have to do is power wash the patio after they migrate.

Not all the swallow nests contain swallows, however. Our newest aviary residents, the house sparrows, are no longer content to just build giant, grassy nests in the dead light fixtures.

No, the incessant chirpers also co-opted a couple of swallow nests that aren’t being used by their creators. Of course, the busy non-native invaders have to add their special flair.

The decorations stayed even through the big wind storm last week.

These aren’t my favorite birds, I must say. We didn’t have any until a couple years ago when they must have flown over from Sara’s house (where they drive her husband crazy) and discovered my chicken scratch strongly resembles bird seed. Now I’m afraid I feed them as much as the hens. Sigh.

There will soon be more sparrows. This nest was chirping.

There’s a new exhibit at the aviary, though. A family of wrens has joined the porch crowd. It’s a Carolina wren group, judging from the song and they eye stripes. But I don’t have any photos of them, because they tend to bop around when I’m in the pool and phone-less. It’s the only time I don’t have a camera!

I guess it’s good that I put some drink trays from our chairs in this box so they wouldn’t blow away. It made a perfect nest area for wrens, who love to nest in human constructions (we’ve had them in flower pots, a wagon, and an old grill).

That’s the nest. I see an egg, I think, or babies and an unhatched egg. Hard to tell.

Since watching wrens bopping around and flicking their is something I enjoy a lot, I’m quite pleased with this new part of the aviary. I believe there ARE babies in there, because I got to see insect delivery this afternoon. It’s like Wild Kingdom around here.

The indoor part of our zoo features French kissing dogs. Eww.

Back to birds, I have a cute chicken story for you, from Lee. He had two pieces of stale bread, and thought he’d give them to the chickens, our traveling domestic exhibit. One piece fell under the shade of our evergreen tree and one fell in the sun.

When he came back later, the shady piece was gone, but the one in the sun was still there. He picked it up and tossed it into the shade, and the girls pounced on it.

The hens are glad we’re back from camping, because the coolest place they can find seems to be under Seneca the motorhome. He also drips water from the air conditioner that they prefer to their trough, though I refill it daily. I’m glad they’re taking care of themselves!

And that’s all the news from the aviary. Hope you’re safe from heat, smoke, or whatever climate issue is happening near you.