Hi, I’m Vlassic, like the picke company, only with an extra s. I am a small, black dog. I travel a lot, now that Suna goes back to Austin more often. I like it in Austin, mostly. I get to hang out with Pickle the chiweenie, play with Anita, and snuggle lots and lots with Suna.
Snuggling makes me very happy.
I have some friends and enemies in Austin, but mostly friends. Last week a dog kept yapping at me until her human took her away. And for some reason, my old buddy, Percy, was mad at me much of the week. But, we sniffed butts and had a nice walk last night. I love walking in Austin. Suna and Anita pick up my poop, so I try to go as much as I can.
This morning, I got to go for a car ride (yay) and we ended up at this place in Cameron, where some of my family are, plus some nice people like Meghan and Jenecia, who give me treats and pet me. It’s a little weird here, but I have toys and a water dish, which helps a lot. Plus, I get to visit and “help” people work!
I’m having a meeting.
Suna took me for a walk today, and that convinced me I do NOT like Cameron. Everywhere I turned there were more dogs barking and running up to me. The first few were behind fences or attached to something that saved me. Whew.
I like the sidewalk, because there are no grass burs. And look, Suna picked up my poop, like she was in Austin or something!
But, a giant dog (Suna says a medium-sized old, sweet dog) came rushing out of a garage and barked LOUD. Suna screamed. She was embarrassed, she told the old human who came running out. In the end, I liked that dog fine, and we sniffed butts. Suna says she has no pictures because she was so busy protecting me. Thanks, Suna!
Parts of the walk were good, like I found a dead thing to sniff, and lots of places to pee.
MMM. Dead thing.
But, danger is everywhere! There were all sorts of grass burs on the sidewalk where the vacant lot had been mowed. I had to stop and remove them, but then, yay! I got to eat them. They are tasty snacks, actually.
Then ANOTHER dog came after me. Suna knew this one would be there, so she talked to it. He wagged his tail, barked a little, and went home. Suna saved me again!
By the time I got home I was exhausted. I tried to regain my strength by eating stuff out of the trash can, but she emptied it.
No luck with the trash can. I’ll just lay down.
Suna felt sorry for me, so she found a nice blankie for me to snuggle up in while she works.
I’m comfy and cozy now!
I’ll just take a nap now, and hope Suna takes me back to the ranch, where my other human, Jim, likes to hang out with me, and where I can run free with the other dogs, even bad ole Penney, who I actually like, now. And my chickens! And all those cute calves. I think I’ll dream of chasing them. Bye!
I’m realizing that my life is coming back, slowly. It’s different, but things I care about keep coming back. For example, going back to my Austin office has let me visit my tree friends in the courtyard (even if we can no longer see them from our desks).
Courtyard oaks.
I’ve known the trees since I moved to this area. We used to drive by them all the time while they were building my house. Then they were mottes of trees in beautiful meadows. Now they got saved when an office complex got built.
So restful.
I saw extra cool honey mushrooms in the rocky karst area.
Ring less honey mushrooms
Home Improvements
Our Bobcat Lair house has been stuck in February mode. The front tree has had Valentine decor, and there was a broken statue on the dining table for months. I was hardly ever home, and Anita stayed downstairs.
Farewell February!
But tonight Declan and Rollie came over and fixed that. We put up all the decorations we have, and Rollie really wanted orange lights, so we have them.
And we did the mantel. Yay.
It felt so good to be doing something together. I miss having the kids around. And they helped so much. We may have been wearing masks and keeping our distance, but we were doing fun seasonal stuff. Time has stopped freezing.
Spooky young people. They ARE smiling.
And we all walked the dogs together. That has always been my favorite family activity, ever since I was a kid. Traditions continue. Life goes on. Love can’t be stopped!
We were planning to explore Wimberley this afternoon, but we quickly realized it was Market Day. It looked really fun, with hundreds of vendors. However, there were also many hundreds of attendees. As wild as we were being by going out of town, we were NOT going to hang out with huge crowds!
So we kept going and instead had a nice drive, punctuated by a stop at Buc-Ees.
I didn’t touch that dirty beaver.
After that we drove around the Canyon Lake area, where I’d never been. We ate at a nice Italian restaurant, then drive around a while more. It was so relaxing looking at all the scenery.
When we got back to where we are staying we decided to go visit a rum distillery. It would have been more fun if they were allowed to serve drinks, but I did get a bottle of craft rum.
The distillery was right near Jacob’s Well, which is a 140-foot deep artesian well on a river.
Jacob’s Well.
These are fairly common around here, with all the limestone aquifers. Of course, there are caves down there. Lots of people get lost in there. Thankfully, swimming season ended October 1. While it was slippery getting down to the well, I managed not to fall in.
Looking down the river.
There were beautiful gardens nearby and a nice playground.
Visitor center (closed)
I was happy to see a sign thanking Master Naturalists for their help. I also enjoy talking to a couple of young park volunteers. So fun.
Nice sign!
I amused the family by taking even more photos of plants. But they said it was nice to see me so happy.
Autumn wildflowers.
Visiting a natural wonder was just what I wanted. It brought much more joy than buying a bunch of stuff would.
Yep, I am a collector. My whole life I’ve enjoyed collecting things like books, leaves, rocks, yarn, and things with pansies on them. As a kid, I had a collection of electronics components that my dad would bring me home from work. He inspected things ranging from telephone poles to potentiometers for Western Electric/AT&T. He’d bring me rejected items and tell me what they were. I had them in shoeboxes, all labeled. Later he brought some very early printed circuit boards and explained how they worked. That led to my first “real” job after high school, which was working in a printed circuit board plant – wow, some of those were HUGE, thick, and sturdy.
My collection display. See, there’s still room for more. There was no way I could get a photo without someone in the mirror, so, I apologize to Lee.
Anyway, I had a fun serendipitous addition to one of my collections yesterday. You see, right after we moved to the Hermits’ Rest, I bought a beautiful little resin horse figurine as one of our first Christmas decorations. It lived on the mantel, and I got a few more as years went by. They are from the Trail of Painted Ponies collection, which, I soon discovered consists of a LOT of little horses. People collect them and apparently pay some pretty ridiculous prices for them.
This one is ceramic, rather than resin. Sounds of Thunder, 2007. By Bill and Traci Rabbit, 1E/1018 (I think, this has weird handwriting on it). This is the side Bill painted.
As time went on, I got a few more Christmas ones, and branched out to some that weren’t Christmas, too. I like the Native American ones. Each is painted by a well-known artist, though some by lesser-known people who win design contests. A large part of the sale of each figurine goes to charity, which made me feel better for buying them.
This is the only Christmas one I bought. Poinsettia Pony, 2007. I like that she has eyes.
Originally, they were large statues in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is why so many of them feature Western themes. Since I have had a small (growing smaller, thanks to our house cleaner) collection of porcelain horses my whole life, this was a natural outgrowth. Plus, Lee liked them. The pansy items I collect, not so much.
This one is sort of busy, but the little images in the circles intrigued me. Skyrider, by Wendy Wells-Bailey, #1509, 2005. 1E/5,338
A year or two ago, Lee got me a nice hutch to display the horses in, since the mantel was getting full. It housed my ten or so horses and a couple of other nice things. Which leads us to yesterday!
Earth, Wind, and Fire, #1545, 2004. I loved the gold, the eagle, and the bear. And the scary warrior. The artist is Bill Rabbit. 3E/2,628.
I was finished with work, and just browsing around, when I got one of those random Facebook notifications that there was a garage sale coming up in Rockdale. I like to occasionally look to see if there are any glass items for my office, so I opened the link. There, in all their glory were a LOT of Trail of Painted Pony boxes. The guy said to ignore the prices on the boxes (that was good, since the lowest one was $75, and I’m not paying that).
This is another favorite. Look at all those hand-placed dots. What you can’t see is there are additional images that are not painted, all over the horse. This one’s just so cool. Thunderbird Suite, by Joel Nakamura, #1582, 2004. 3E/2,879
I asked Lee and Kathleen if they wanted to go for a ride, and they said they would, so off we went to Rockdale. How spontaneous, right?
There, we met an interesting guy who does auctions and is selling off inventory from a store he used to own (hence the price tags). It turned out the horses were all from the early years of the Trail of Painted Ponies, starting in 2004. The newest ones were from 2007.
This is one I’d seen photos of and always wanted. There’s a big pink jewel on her tummy. Sky of Enchantment, 2004. She’s the oldest one, and from only the third edition of the ponies. #1534, 4E/9,670
So, Kathleen helped me look through all of them. Not all are to my taste, but a couple were really, really cool, like Willing, here, who is a heavy metal horsie, with a fake hair tail and tassel. Whoa. You just have to have THAT.
That’s one cool and scary horse. It has a real chain pair of reins, and all that tail and “beard” hair. Willing, #1510, 2005, by Virgil Ortiz. 1E/5,973.
I ended up selecting nine horses, which was over my initial goal, but some of these were just SO cool, and I knew they were all retired (and some first editions with 1E labels) and would cost a lot in a store or on eBay (I went to a store in some tourist town that had most of them, but some were over $200, and I don’t want any figurine THAT badly). We settled on a price that was reasonable, after I made a ridiculously low bid, because I apparently can’t multiply by 9.
Lee agreed that it was a good deal, so I am happy and not broke.
This is the back of Sounds of Thunder. A husband and wife team, Bill and Traci Rabbit, did this horse, and the blue side represents the male spirit, while the white side is the female spirit. I love the image on the horse’s neck.
The seller also threw in this beautiful Fenton pitcher, since it has a little crack. I don’t care, because it’s just going to set on a glass shelf, once I have them. Right now it’s in the entry room at the Pope Residence, but that’s just a temporary location.
Fenton cranberry glass coin dot pitcher.
I love that each horse comes with a story, and that they are so detailed. They aren’t just painted, but they have engravings, accessories like leather reins, and other trimmings. These older ones aren’t labeled on the base like newer ones are, but that’s an easy way to tell which ones are old!
They are all numbered and labeled on the bottom, which is nice.
It’s hard to say which of the horses is my favorite, but two of them stand out. The Saguaro Stallion has a beautiful moonrise painting on it, along with very interesting lines embossed into the mold. I love the colors. And the base has rocks on it.
Saguaro Stallion by John Geryak, #1523, 2005. 1E/4947
The other one I love is a very traditional looking horse, all dressed up for a parade. Plus, he’s a paint.
Silverado, #12241, from 2007. He’s so silvery! By Karlynn Keyes, 1E/1,108
I you enjoyed this journey down the Trail of Painted Ponies. I enjoy looking at them every day, and they fit in nicely with the ranch theme of our house. Last year I wasn’t feeling too well, and didn’t get a holiday horse or any other, but I plan to make up for it and get at least one horse every year. It’s something fun to look forward to.
That’s what collections are for, right? Fun. Share what you collect, if you’d like to.
Let’s think about what makes for a nice day. For me, it’s being out in nature with friends of the human and animal kind. That’s just what Sara and I got yesterday afternoon, only marred by how hot the humidity made us feel.
When we got to the horse area, Apache was drenched in sweat, which got us worried, but, he acted happy enough, so we decided to take our walk in a shadier area at the back of the cattle pasture, to get out of the sun. First, we successfully moved her cattle from that pasture to the one Spice and Lakota had been in, moved Lakota to the cattle pasture, and got Fiona in to walk with us. It took no time at all. Sure is nice when everyone already wants to go where you’re trying to send them!
Lakota and Fiona noshed their way through the walk, right along with us.
Then we just walked and walked. And that meant ALL of us. Lakota followed us around like he was being led, like Apache was. Sure was good to see him acting peppy again. Sara says she worries about letting loose horses walk with horses being ridden, since she got kicked by a horse and broke a bone that way once. But, Lakota was a real gentleman.
Yep, they were having fun.
It was a little spooky where we were, since it’s behind a ridge and you feel hidden from the rest of the ranch. Fiona liked it, though, and ran around exploring.
It’s very green and spooky down here!
Even Apache seemed to have fun. He plodded right along with us, only occasionally distracted by yummy grass. Going up and down the little rises was probably good exercise for all of us!
I love how the color came out on this picture! You can see the rise behind Sara.
We saw osage-orange trees, which makes sense, because the area we walked in is an arroyo/wash that stays wet a lot. Those trees like dampness.
The fruit is easy to spot.
We were happy to also see a lot of milkweed. These were green antelope horns, and they had seed pods, some of which had opened. The opened pods had lots and lots of these extra-cool milkweed bugs. Aren’t they pretty?
milkweed seeds and bug
bug up close!
Seed pods in the center
We went out again this morning, minus Lakota. The weather was better, but Apache was not in a great mood to walk, which makes me think yesterday’s walk made his poor feet hurt. Let’s say it was good practice encouraging him to do what I wanted him to.
This is what he wanted to do. And yes, Spice photobombed many photos yesterday. We laughed.
We also saw this incredible jumping spider. I believe it’s an Apache jumping spider. They look like “velvet ants” (which are really wasps), and are quite good mimics! They fooled us.
It hardly looks real!
And when I went to pick up my tack box, I almost set my hand down on this lovely mantid. I was able to get her back outside to go eat bugs and stuff.
Please get me out of here. There are no delicious bugs on this plastic thing.
That made me feel good, and contributed to another nice day. I really enjoyed taking my mind off complicated issues and just enjoying my walking companions, my ranch family.
It’s been fun to see how our new water lines are going in. Chris sure can drive heavy machinery.
Don’t fill in our dirt!
I’m happy to see a new water spigot for the chickens’ water. The water trough got moved and cleaned, too. Where it is now, the chickens in both pens can drink from it, so I won’t have to maintain separate bowls when I’ve got young or sick ones, like now.
Yep, a faucet. Now it is attached to the water trough, and I’ll get a picture tomorrow.
There’s a faucet for horse washing and other such deeds, then there’s an outlet where a big water trough will be.
Where the trough will be.
Eventually there will be another outlet for separate horse watering. There will be happy animals out here!
The other faucet.
Chris has been out all night trying to finish the job. He’s gonna be tired tomorrow! I sure appreciate the huge improvements!
I’m keeping an eye on him, says the big porch toad.
It turns out he wanted to get the trench covered back up before the rain we expect tomorrow. Smart thinking, but exhausting.
I’m baffled sometimes about how humans managed to connect so deeply with some other animals.
Fiona wanted to see my sister so badly this evening that she barged into the hay area just to be near her. Why? She’s full of love and wanted to share? I don’t know. But I do know equines sense our feelings.
95% love, 5% sass.
And tonight, though I want to go to sleep, I can’t move, because two dogs are glued to me. They’ve done this all weekend, perhaps somehow sensing I could use some comfort.
Carlton is on both of my legs. Penney is glued to the right one.
Yep. There’s a real connection between humans and animals. Even the chickens! It’s made my life better.
Maybe you know this, and maybe you don’t, but back in the early days of the internet, I was a semi-famous web designer, specializing in sites for people working with breastfeeding mothers and babies. Now, THAT was a career I never would have foreseen (besides not knowing there would BE a World Wide Web, I was pretty sure I would never reproduce. My first love didn’t want children (and never had them, just cats), and I thought they’d slow down my feminist agenda, or something.
Turned out, though, that not only did I like babies quite a lot, doing websites allowed me to stay home and watch them grow, with plenty of time left to support other mothers and babies. And by gosh, I got a career out of the whole deal. That pretty much fit right in with my agenda, after all.
While that career path has dwindled a bit (oh wait, I am still the webmaster for some organizations), my enjoyment of babies has stuck with me. I love the potential. I love watching them change every day (though I haven’t had a chance to do that in a long time), I love watching parents grow and rise up to all the inevitable challenges, or lean on others when those challenges overwhelm.
This was my challenge. No sleep! Lost me a spouse! I wasn’t much fun. Photo by @andreafwagner via Twenty20.
Parenting brought me life-long friends (I have some from 30 years ago, when I first got pregnant and looked up information on online bulletin boards). Now that my friends are grandparenting, I get the joy of watching those relationships develop. It’s really amazing how my friends have been helping their children’s children during the pandemic, ranging from caring for them so the parents can work from home to home-schooling programs on Zoom.
It doesn’t appear that I’ll be a grandparent (I guess if K fathered children, I’d not get to see them, and there are some challenges for D). I guess that’s good for overpopulation. But I’ll miss having the chance to be there for my sons and their partners, and to hold and smell little ones again (yes, I remember there are also bad smells).
This generic newborn stands in for the real one, who I don’t want to plaster all over the internet, since he’s not my child. Photo by @christyhermogenes via Twenty20.
But, other people’s kids aren’t quite so set on not having babies, so I got to be a great aunt by marriage a few days ago. I’m excited, though the pandemic means I only get to see photos of the little guy. I look into his face, with eyes old beyond his age, and see so much potential. He already shows what he might look like when he’s older, with a large mouth, lots of hair, and very expressive eyes. What a wonder, indeed. His young mama is enjoying him, and his grandparents are ridiculously excited, as they should be. I get to enjoy it vicariously, which is better than a kick in the head!
The actual baby. I got permission to share. Isn’t he adorable.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few very scary months in the world, but I’m very glad that I will have a sweet baby boy to distract me and to remind me of the timeless wonder of babies as they grow. May he grow into a world full of peace, love, and kindness.
Even though practically no one reads my book reviews, I have another one already. That’s what you get when you pick up a Young Adult selection; they go fast.
The Wall Street Journal is right! The cover does not lie.
Oddly enough, I am not sure where this book came from. Maybe someone loaned it to me? Maybe I bought it that last, wonderful time I went to Barnes & Noble and got it on sale? Anyway, I’m glad Wonder, by R.J. Palacio (apparently a pseudonym) showed up magically in my stack of books to read. I needed something uplifting and cheerful, in which everyone learns from their mistakes and grows.
I can see why Wonder was a best seller and why lots and lots of adults read it. All the characters in the book were interesting and fun to learn about. It made you want to follow them as they go through the rest of school. It’s great to see how people learn and screw up and keep learning, including the adults in the book.
Also, it’s just funny, and I think that’s important, since a book about the trials of a child with facial deformities going to school for the first time could be mostly heartbreak, otherwise. Instead, you empathize along with everyone as the hero, Auggie, shows how much of a normal (and resilient) kid he is and makes it through the ups and downs of his first year in a school.
Lee and Penney patiently waited for me to read the book aloud, but I told them I’d do it later.
If you have a child who’s “different” in any way, this would be good to read along with. And if you were a “different” child, you’ll enjoy rooting for Auggie and his family. I’m glad I had parents who were supportive like his, since I played the role of Auggie’s big sister in protecting my younger brother, who wore an eye patch and got picked on when he was little. We both ended up fine, or at least survived to adulthood!
I promise I’ll write something on another topic later. Until then, enjoy the new week.
Yep, Chris didn’t get to go look at farm equipment yesterday, so he did the next best thing and headed over to the Sale Barn. There were more inexpensive young cows to be had!
Where are we? What happened? Where’s Mama?
He saw lots of good ones, but stayed within his budget and returned with two new friends for Rip.
One is pretty big and muscular. It makes you wonder what the rest of his herd looks like if he’s a reject. He’s older than Rip and the other one, so we wonder if he’ll take milk from a bottle.
I’m big and pretty.
The other one is small and skinny, like Rip, and a very dark brown. When he laid down, he looked just like a turd, so I’m calling him Poop Nugget. I’ll let Kathleen name the other one, because I know there are more characters in that television show. She may well rename Nugget. I don’t have naming rights to their calves!
I’m a fuzzy little nugget.
I’m sure Rip will be happier with friends, and also when he gets over his mild pneumonia. He’s on antibiotics. He doesn’t like shots. Who does? Just ask Vlassic!
Those other guys don’t know what they’re missing. Mmm. Milk.
Speaking of dogs, Vlassic and Gracie seemed to think the calves were invaders, and kept chasing them. They ignore Rip. They also ignore the birds, who wander around with no worries.
We don’t like these strange calves.
Chris and Kathleen tried their best to get the new babies to drink from a bottle, but they weren’t interested yet. Maybe they’ll be hungry and less confused today.
Rip says he will drink it if Nugget won’t.
There was lots of mooing last night. Let’s hope they settle in and grow big and strong. They have an expanded pen to roam in and lots of cattle cubes. Our ranch family will do our best to give them good lives.
The Hermits' Rest 