I had another post about birds planned, but I’ll get to it tomorrow. I stayed up late watching The Residence, the show about the birder detective, which I saw on one of my solo trips, but am enjoying sharing with Lee. What happy elders we are so far this year.
I cooked all day, but it was fine. Every year I enjoy making our traditional family meal and watching the kids eat it. Having young adults who like collard greens and black-eyed peas brings me joy.
I also appreciate that my son made these sconces for me and hung them up. I’ll get a closer photo.
My accomplishment I wanted to mention is that I got the 2025 temperature blanket assembled into one piece on New Year’s Day, 2026. I’m so proud of myself. And it even looks good! Best of all, it’s functional. I can use it as a lap blanket.
Nice look with me holding it up with my mouth, huh.
It looks like a calendar and you can tell it’s hotter in the summer. I’ve added another row of blue on the outside to even it up, then comes an exciting rainbow border while I wait for my new border color, which I’ve already told you is tan. The blue outlines will be red—hoping there’s one not exactly like the reds that are for high temperatures.
I also painted more rocks today. These are the ones I finished yesterday.
All in all, a fun day, of which I will share more tomorrow.
If you live in the part of the world where I do, your head is probably still spinning from the rapid weather change from yesterday to today (hoping you didn’t spin out on any ice). You know it got cold fast when the day’s high temperature was yesterday’s low, all occurring just before and after midnight.
This picture depicts sleet on our windshield, which looks like rain.
And of course, the blustery wind also returned, merrily tossing things around. We just missed snow, which visited Waco. All animals seem unperturbed—the horses went into their nice shelter until the wind settled a bit, and the fowl went into their nice and out of their coop, which has a heat lamp. I rushed out to toss food at them all. Brr.
This is from yesterday. I was trying to capture the green sheen on the Cochins.
Since I can’t work again this week, I luxuriated in activities I usually don’t have time for. I put together my bullet journal so it will be ready for Thursday (I saved the fun of adding washi stickers for tomorrow. I came up with color themes for each month’s journal entries and color/pattern themes for my nails, which I may or may not adhere to, since I won’t berate myself for changing my mind. (Dang, I come across as Susie Housewife here, but I’m just artsy, that’s all.)
I even went to the Big City with Lee and did some in-person book shopping at Barnes & Noble. I bought myself my own dang Christmas gifts, a fiction book, a feminism book, and three fun bird items. Also on-sale coloring books. I felt like a kid with new toys when I got home and could play with my new things.
A very funny bird guide that makes a good gift for a birder with a sense of humorThis deck had 50 sweet illustrations and “messages” from the birds. I may draw a card a day. We’ll see. This is a rather scatalogical bird-a-day calendar. Each weekend is a mad libs kind of dealThis is the reverse side. My two books.
I got all the New Year’s meal ingredients at the grocery store (fresh collards) and stuff to cook for dinner. I don’t mind cooking so much when I am not tired from working. Susie Housewife is not Super-woman.
But I do glow (photo from Saturday, when it was warm yet breezy)
By the way, I cooked our belated Christmas dinner last night for Anita and “the kids,” and was very happy with a turkey breast cooked in my Pampered Chef clay pot thing. I gave everyone their painted rocks, which seemed to go over ok. My son made me lovely candle stands for the wall. I’ll share a photo tomorrow. I do love handmade gifts.
This is Lee’s stoic rock.
Tomorrow should be fun. Closet clean-out day with my son’s partner for help.
We had some little adventures getting out of the campsite, but all was not lost, because I did get an hour of birding in this morning and got photos of birds I wanted to see.
And plants! The heart leaf hibiscus opened up and I got photos!
I also found out from the birding volunteer that there used to be a roller skating rink at the park during the years between when the Rectory was built and when the land became a State Park. There are no signs of it now, but a 92-year-old visitor described it to the Lake Corpus Christi State Park folks. It turns out the water tower was from when the land was a farm. So many changes!
And now the park has the nicest bathrooms ever.
Anyway, I was very happy to capture the elusive White-eyed Vireo and Great Kiskadee today, even though the lighting wasn’t perfect. At least the sun came out!
Great Kiskadee It would not show me it’s yellow breastWhite-eyed Vireo, hiding. Regal doveGolden-fronted WoodpeckerTurkey VultureIntense Green JayPensive CardinalFeeding frenzy with Chipping Sparrows Sassy titmouse
That was one of the good things for the day. The worst thing I have no photographs of. Be glad I can’t transfer smells through the blog, though. I’d broken the kitchen faucet on the way down (improper bungee cording) and we’d used our “nice” (from Target) rug to mop up the mess that happened when the water was turned on. So, I set it outside to dry, but every morning the fog would wet it again, then I’d forget to bring it in when it dried back off.
Allow me to interrupt with a picture of one of those lightweight flying things I saw yesterday.
The upshot was that the rug was still outside last night. When I went to put it in the storage area to take it home to clean it, I thought it smelled bad, but put it in, anyway. When Lee opened the bin later he nearly gagged. It didn’t smell a little; it smelled a lot. Like some virile woodland creature had decided to mark it as his territory with extra-musky urine. Not good. We will replace the rug, because there’s no way we’d take it home. The dogs would have gone crazy. I felt bad putting the odiferous parcel in the dumpster, knowing people would be opening it to add refuse.
I didn’t do it, says Black Vulture.
The next stinker came when we went to leave and Lee had forgotten to release the hand brake. That also was very loud. But we quickly fixed that!
The other good thing that happened was that I finally found my previous phone. It had been hiding in, of all things, my phone holder I use when riding in the motorhome. Well, now that it’s charged up, I have a better phone camera again.
There it is.
We made it home just fine, and of course I immediately went to check on my livestock. The horses were quite insistent that they were starving, as were the fowl. I fed the birds, and discovered that Darryl had done his manly duty so well that Connie started laying eggs again! No one has told her or the hens that they are supposed to wait until spring.
The heat does make it feel spring-like.
It was good to be back home with all the buddies. I was happy to see my gift from my son—it’s a new door for my tack room. It’s too heavy for him to lift it by himself to install it, though! It looks good where it is, though.
I didn’t blog yesterday because it was just a normal day doing normal things. Today was similar. It’s been cooler, like normal December weather, but I have appropriate clothing.
And the ridiculously early sunsets are pretty.
I did have a brief walk this morning because I wanted to see what was going on next door. Our former ranch property is now unmistakably not ours. That’s a darned nice entry!
If you need fancy cows, go here.
So, other than that I’ve worked, painted some rocks, crocheted the rest of November on my temperature blanket, picked up my new glasses that are now the correct prescription, and wow! I shortened my nails!
BeforeAfterBeforeAfterThese frames are titanium, and very light. They are the least weird ones.
No rock photos. Some are gifts. All are rather amateurish. Instead, you can have a cute photo of Carlton being a circle dog. Lee’s lap is never empty when it’s chilly and rainy outside!
They’re coordinated.
I’ll try to come up with something philosophical or some deep thoughts tomorrow. Heck, I can’t cut my nails and get new glasses every day to make for fascinating blogging, right? Maybe we should view it as good that I feel well enough and the world hasn’t upset me enough to make for more interesting blogging.
Even though I didn’t plan it this way, Thanksgiving at the Hermits’ Rest was very pleasant. There was a distinct lack of drama, argument, and stress. And there was an abundance of birds.
Hello, I’m a Harris’s Sparrow, until they change my name.
Since I simplified the meal, I didn’t stress over cooking, which gave me lots of time to play with the camera (and get frustrated by the image transfer software), as well as feed and pet animals. I had a good morning.
I’m a female of one of the sparrows.
Since I had an easy fresh turkey breast to roast, the only dishes I had to carefully cook were my cranberry sauce and oyster dressing. Both came out great. I made green beans and mashed potatoes later, and the only disaster was gravy boiling over. Not bad. I did make a lot of food, but not as much as usual.
Not shown are green beans with mushrooms and rolls (and pie)
My son has decided not to eat Thanksgiving dinner. I understand and respect it, since I have no interest in the Pilgrim stuff. I read some healing thoughts from Native Americans on using this time for gratitude and friendship, so I went with that. After all, we mostly ate food from the Americas, so that worked for me.
Why does everyone post photos of their meals? I’m not sure. I’m just glad I’ve learned to simplify. This was all delicious, especially the dressing.
I did get to enjoy a nice long visit with my son, which doesn’t happen very often. It was fun comparing notes on local owls and sharing stories of past adventures.
Drinking coffee and sitting in the sun. Nice.
Anita was our only guest at the table, so I’m very glad she was able to join us. She, Lee, and I had such a relaxing and comfortable meal, then just hung out. The hanging out parts were the best thing about the day.
She was happier than she looks.
Yep, today I had much to be grateful for. I heard from many family members and friends, too.
The gratitude rock went over well
It’s heartwarming to be reminded of all your connections all over the country. And we are connected through this means of communication as well, so remember that!
Vlassic reminds you that he’s a connection, too. My formerly jet-black dog!
Today was the least stressful Thanksgiving ever, though it’s been getting better every year. Tomorrow we go visit the birds at Port Aransas, and I hope I can get lots of birding in before the next cold front! I’ll leave you with more of today’s photos. Some I won’t label. Those will be house sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, or White-crowned Sparrows
Two meanings to this: one is I’m still stumped as to why my mental health tanked so hard—I couldn’t even be trying myself to go to my riding lesson today. I was too woozy to feel safe riding even good old Apache.
That meant I got to be home for sunset and the welcome rain that followed.
The second way I’m stumped is good, though. I now have a very large stump in my birding area!
Deceased elm tree.
This tree was a hazard on a main road and had to be removed. Lucky for me, the tree’s pieces were destined for our burn pile, and I had mentioned how cool it would be to use a large slice as a bird feeding platform.
This was the first piece I saw. Nowhere near as big as the one I got.
I was working on the porch this morning so I could also watch birds, when I heard the unmistakeable sound of our ancient backhoe approaching. It was beating the stump!
The regular tractor couldn’t carry this!
I have to give them credit, they got me the best stump ever. It’s huge! And when it gets trimmed it will have two heights of at least somewhat level surface that the dogs can’t get to. And since it’s inside our fence, curious cows won’t be able to mess with any feeding or watering stuff I put up there.
The plan is to anchor the birdbath on there, too, so it won’t fall over.
I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet. I usually don’t feed birds, since we have plenty for them to eat here, even in winter, but it might be fun to get some photos.
Trying to show me compared to the stump.
It’s fun to think about, anyway. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I can sit in my birding station on dry pillows (because I put them in the storage bin!) and look at the stump. You know, when I read that sentence it occurs to me that it sounds dull as heck. Oh well.
A dull photo of doves roosting before the storm.
I will prove I’m more boring than you’d imagine by telling you the evening’s excitement was when Lee realized the rain on our dumpster made the lights in the house reflect off it. We thought it was mysterious lights in the empty field across the road.
It looked less like a dumpster and more like spooky lights in person.
I also heard a turkey in the woods. Now that was exciting. Connie didn’t gobble back at it, though.
I didn’t write last night because I was chatting with my family. This makes me think blogging is what I do when there’s no one to talk to. Perhaps two occasions of that happening in one week aren’t enough data for such a sad interpretation. It is not the case that I have so few people to talk to in real life that I chat with an unknown audience. I have both friends and readers, many of whom ARE friends or step-sisters.
Very few readers are oak trees.
The weather is probably making me weird(er) today. It kept acting like it wanted to rain, then just displaying attractive clouds to distract me from the projects I was planning to talk about.
Clouds and trees throughout the day.
Before the projects, I’ll share a story of mama cows who are brave. There was a new tan calf this morning and I saw the vultures heading over to the pond to bother the mom and baby. Vultures look beautiful in morning light with dark clouds behind them (last tree photo above was the setting). The mother cow was looking unhappy and let out a weird short moo.
The new baby sniffing poop. How cute.
In response I hear hooves. The new white calf is running toward the new family. That calf is quite the zippy little thing. Her mother was right behind, mooing loudly. Mama walked right up to the vultures, lowered her big bovine head, and shooed the birds away. So much flapping! After that, everyone settled down for peaceful nursing and grazing.
Happy familiesThe worst thing was that a vulture pooped on this cow’s head. Look at that little tongue!FuzzyCurious
Okay, so I did leave the ranch in time to do some volunteering over at the Wildscape project with some of the Master Naturalist chapter. There was a large pile of dirt to spread over a weed barrier, and there was also some cleanup to do as the team gets ready to plant new pollinator-attracting plants for the H-E-B pollinator grant we got.
I was not very helpful, but I did take some unofficial photos of everyone working.
Working on the Wildscape
Then I ran off to the bird sanctuary, which is hanging in there without our help. I wandered off to the area where prairie is being restored and found myself all alone and unable to see signs of humanity other than fences. That was good energy for the new year (Samhain and Día de Los Muertes).
Birding areaPost oak savannaCool lichenFungus
I did go back and interact with people, plus get to connect with my friends Ann and Donna, who have been dealing with health issues that annoy them.
Glad to know them.
I’m glad I got to go help a little, even though it meant I missed a funeral. Lee was able to attend and convey my condolences, though. I always feel a lot of sympathy for spouses who are left alone after many years. I’m glad our friend who lost his wife has a large supportive family.
Meadowhawk
When I got home from my errands, I got to watch more work being done on my birding station. They had to go back for more wood again—I think the design has been refined. I was told the project just eats wood. Anyway, it now has siding along the bottom, so there’s just top and roof left, I think.
Ya know, these days not much fazes me around here. As long as there’s no gushing blood on humans or livestock, it’s all fine.
I’ve got Penney and her pals watching out for me.
Today was typical. I enjoyed my morning birding—I really missed it last week, and I took Penney out for a tromp through the front field while I took pictures for yet another BioBlitz, for the Native Plant Society. So idyllic!
Queen of the Hill
I settled in at my desk to do meetings and a big task, with my coffee in my hand and headphones over my ears. However, near the end of the second meeting I heard Lee exclaim that the horses were out. Oops! Someone (me) didn’t shut the big gate well and the wind blew it open.
We found green grass, Suna.
They sure looked happy in the driveway circle, where Lee had accidentally left the water on the little tree for too long. I’m just glad it is not fresh and juicy enough to mess with Apache.
Yum yum yum
Lee and I decided to let them hang out in the open area for the day, and bungee-corded the front gate shut. I think they had a good day finding pockets of grass that’s not all dried up. I also noticed a lot of rubbing itchy areas on pieces of equipment.
Playing with dogs also happened.
They went right back to their pens for feeding time with just a little encouragement, so it’s all just fine. The afternoon ended with more birding and pleasant sitting by the pool as a family.
I gazed at the birding station from the pool patio. They’ll get back to it soon!
Heck, the only negative stuff for today was an outage of our phone service (worse for others than for me, because it didn’t stop me from working) and frustration with getting logged in to the correct streaming service for football. I’m sure it’s easier for the young folks. Just too many passwords on annoying interfaces!
So I just breathe and look at grass. Aah.
When you don’t let surprises bug you, it’s way easier to deal with the little things, and that’s today’s takeaway.
I couldn’t identify this by sight, but iNaturalist says it’s very dry prairie tea (Croton monanthogynus)
Today nothing bad happened. I had fun. I rested. I enjoyed nature and my pets. I hung out with family. I colored. I did my nails with a glow-in-the-dark accent.
Male Scissortail FkycatcherRed-tailed Hawk Friendly cottontail Tie vine and green antelope horns milkweed
I needed this day. I feel privileged that I can experience a quiet day of peace and love. So many of us can’t ignore the news for a day or take time off to rest.
I colored flowers today
Now I want everyone to be so fortunate. There is work to do.
And if we need to work hard, fun nails can’t hurt.
Let’s see, autumnal equinox or Mabon occurred today. At least in the wheel of the year there is balance between dark and light twice a year, which is more than you can say about other forces at work in the world.
Um, and it’s New Year’s in the Hebrew calendar. I ate some honey and wished my many Jewish friends a good new year. We could all use one.
Let’s hope for numerous good deeds.
That’s what I’ve got for today…wait a sec, I did enjoy a very pleasant hike on the Lakeside Trail along Bob Sandlin Lake. I saw a Brown Thrasher and enjoyed many pretty views.
Lakeside scenery
In honor of the season I tried to find a sampling of autumn leaves. There were a few. It’s still a while before Texas Autumn.
Snuck in this dog vomit slime mold. I don’t know what they all are, but they are pretty.
Back at home I was reminded that daily annoyances do not ever disappear (and are normal). I couldn’t get the tack room door to open all the way, so I called my son to the rescue, only to find out the door is a mess. He says maybe he can lower the steps. In the meantime, it’s hard to get the horse dishes through the opening.
I also nearly broke the freezer shelf that’s already partly broken. So much is broken that I can’t fix! My bathroom sink in the motorhome no longer works, my bedroom slide out is dead again, the generator won’t start, yadda yadda. Recreational vehicles are not very sturdy. Nor are houses. They all fall apart and you need to find people to fix them. As we get older, there’s more we can’t do ourselves. No wonder people move into those senior care places. They have maintenance staff.
These avatars get worse and worse.
Just whining. All will be well. I just realized this afternoon that I hit a limit on broken things not bothering me. I must do a reset or fix something!
I’ll think back on cool sights, like this blue-tipped dancer.
Obviously there was not all that much great today, but I treasure the good parts!
The Hermits' Rest 