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!
Today my mom would have been 103, so unlike many of my friends, I never expected her to be around for me at my age. But since she has been gone for 40 years, I’ve missed her longer than I had her. I don’t dwell on this much, but something that happened to be last week brought my lack of mothering to mind.
My family in the 1960s.
One of the many cruel declarations against us horrible liberals asserted that we were mentally ill for supporting our LGBTQIA family and friends. It made me feel so alone and hopeless to realize this. My brain reverted to childhood, tears came to my eyes, and from deep in my past, the cry of “I want my mom” came up. I just wanted a hug from someone who unconditionally loved me.
Mom loved camellias
I can still smell the Chanel No. 5 and smoke on mom as she wrapped her skinny tanned arms around me as I cried after being bullied or taunted.
She also loved “mama redbirds”
It was hard being a chubby, sensitive child. It’s hard being her sensitive adult self.
I am saddened that the way people treat each other today can send me back to such raw emotional needs. Yikes. And I know I’m not alone. We all need to have a safe place, a virtual place of comfort like when you’re in your mother or father’s arms.
Mature-ish Suna must find that in herself. Ugh. (Yes, I have a fine spouse and friends, but they aren’t Mom.)
I tend to write about how Mom’s mental health issues made things difficult for me, but I assure you, she had many fine qualities, one of which was loving her children as best as she could.
She was also funny, an amazing artist and crafter, a great dancer, a gardener with a solid green thumb, a creative and resourceful cook, a fine whistler, and really good with makeup and nail polish. I remember all these traits, too.
I do miss my mom. I think she’s giving me strength via her memories. I need it.
It looks like I do. I made a drink from one of Kathleen’s little flavor packets and ended up with the blues: blue drink, nails, hair, and glasses. I will point out that I had a brown shirt (with a blue Roadrunner on it).
Good thing the light washed out my hair.
On a more serious note, I shared this story on Facebook this morning:
What a morning at my birding platform. First, I was just sitting here, watching Baltimore Orioles flying around, when I heard a Green Heron. Then I saw it, flying toward me, aiming directly over my head. I thought how pretty it was, but wondered what would happen if it pooped. Then a big white glob came down! Thankfully it landed just inches off my concrete pad. My blue hair is safe!
The little bits of white are poop.
Then, after measuring yesterday’s .02” of rain, I gazed over at the fence. Oh my gosh, something was hanging from one of the chrysalises I’d been watching! It was a fresh, new Gulf Fritillary. It’s our most common large butterfly, since we have lots of sorrel vines that they love. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a butterfly emerging in the wild. What a privilege!
It was pearlescent
The humor and beauty carried me through an intense work day just fine! A meeting ended early, too, so I had time to give Vicki some slightly old frozen meat to make into dog food and exercise the horses. Neither horse was into it. I think I should have let them rest.
They were peaceful on our evening stroll, though. It’s hard to get them all in one photo.
Just a little relaxation with the animals prevents the psychological blues from coming over me, though. Watching the dogs play in the long grass at sunset was a great way for me and Lee to wind down. They don’t get out much, but for once they stayed with us and didn’t run off to roll in poop.
Happy dog buddies
I’m thinking about so many of you all, dealing with what comes your way as best you can. We are in this together. As my friend Kathy just reminded me, we’re all under the same moon!
I’m pretty wiped out from doing so much outside in the heat. I know Apache and I are both looking forward to the promised cold front. But today is National Dog Day in the US, so I’ll focus on the dogs for once.
No, not you, cute little fiery skipper, it’s the dogs’ turn.
Starting from small to large, Vlassic is doing very well, still staying in the garage apartment with Lee’s older brother. He’s a great companion and gives Jim purpose. Vlassic is no longer solid black. His head is quite salt-and-pepper, and the rest of his body has white hairs, but he has not slowed down one bit. He loves to sit in the sun and go visit the horses. At least he no longer tries to herd cattle.
This photo is a couple years old, but he has some gray. I didn’t get a chance to photograph him today.
Penney is next in size. She is still the most neurotic dog I’ve ever owned, and perhaps that I’ve ever met. It’s hard to be nice to her, because if you pet her, she starts whining and groveling and trying to lick you. She must have had a weird puppyhood. She hates loud noises, but can occasionally be brave and bark at perceived intruders.
Not groveling.
I notice, though, that she lets the resident rabbits graze peacefully in the yard quite close to her. They also graze close to me. I think they’re becoming domesticated.
What’s there to be afraid of?
Goldie wouldn’t have let those rabbits in HER yard! But Penney does. And she’s happy in her neurotic way. She enjoys sitting with Lee in his chair, and sleeping under my desk while I work.
She can really relax.
Carlton is Penney’s favorite playmate. Each evening they have to have their episode of running around and playing, either indoors or out.
Typical.
Carlton is still one great dog. We enjoy him so much. He’s friendly, funny, and beautiful. I love that he always sleeps with me in bed, like he’s the other person. He even uses a pillow. (Lee is in his recliner next to us.)
Photo taken as I’m writing this.
I just love watching him run around the yard and sniff out whatever it is he finds in the grass. He’s just a perfect buddy for me.
Thanks for liking me.
Harvey, who’s been a grumpy old man his entire life, is still hanging in there. His liver disease and interesting bumps and protrusions don’t seem to stop him from having a good life. After his stroke last year while we were dealing with Goldie’s cancer, he has improved enough to be able to climb the stairs again and get on his beloved couch for sleeping.
He looks pretty good from this side.
He gets whatever he wants at this point in his life. We’re just glad he is still with us, growls and all.
Here you can see the lump on his leg, which is not bone cancer.
And of course, there’s Alfred, the big guy. He is shedding an incredible amount of hair right now. I took enough off him today that I swear he looks smaller now.
Fluffy dog (and wine)
He is just about as sweet as he can be, though quite insistent when he believes it’s his turn to be petted. Suddenly there’s a huge head pressed against you. You must pet it. He seems to be doing very well on his joint medication. He runs, plays, and bounces around so joyfully sometimes that I get choked up. I’m so glad he’s happy here.
Pet me NOW.
Of course, there are some nights when he barks for hours at coyotes or something. That’s why we have a fan in the bedroom. White noise.
They can be loud, but we love them.
Yeah, the only thing about the dogs is the barking when they detect an intruder or arriving family member. It’s loud. But if I were a criminal I would think twice about crossing our valiant protectors. They do a good job, so I appreciate them all.
The Hermits' Rest 