Insect Sightings – Page 15 – The Hermits' Rest

Best Birding at Home Ever!

Today was misty and damp, plus I had a lot on my plate between work and chores. Still, the time I did manage to steal time for firing up Merlin Bird ID and listening to/looking for birds paid off big time. I just knew I’d see cool birds this spring, eventually.

I can’t bury the lead: look who helped me feed the horses and shovel poop this evening! It’s a yellow-headed blackbird! Whoa! It was quite friendly and just hung around as I did chores (I was hyperventilating that I saw what I thought I saw).

Very cool migrant I welcomed from Mexico.

The morning was equally exciting. I heard a weird sound when I was out feeding chickens. Then I recalled Lee saying he’d heard something that sounded like a heron, but not like our usual ones. Sure enough, it was a green heron.

You can’t see it, but they were by this pond.

Actually, I saw them flying and realized it was a pair. We have them sometimes, so it wasn’t a big surprise, but the amount of calling these guys did helped cement the sound of green herons in my mind. They went on all day, I think.

Another bird was giving a concert as well. The great crested flycatcher had come up before, and I always figured Merlin had it confused with our common (yet breathtaking) scissor tail flycatchers.

However, the pair (or more) in the woods today sounded distinctly different from their showy cousins. I could tell exactly where they were, because they were calling repeatedly, but I only got a glimpse of two of them changing trees.

But wait, there’s more. Also among the cacophony (of course with cardinals, wrens, titmice, and woodpeckers), was another cool bird. I sure wish I’d seen the yellow-breasted chat, though hearing it was interesting enough. This is another bird I thought might have been identified in error, but when it repeatedly registered and I became able to pick it out, I believed it.

Even if you aren’t a birder, you can see why I was pretty happy with today’s variety—39 birds in all, even without all the winter sparrows. There was a gray catbird in the mix, too, and I almost got a photo of it!

I did get an excellent photo of an orange blister beetle, though.

In mammal news, the painkillers seem to be working on Apache. He had the gumption to try to get away when I came at him with his medication. And he’s eating more, too. The other horses are so good. They hang out with him a lot so he isn’t too lonely.

Oh, one more bit of bird news: there’s a harrier nest in Sara’s part of the ranch! That was exciting to me, since they’re my favorite raptor. Now, please enjoy some flowers.

Family Gratitude

Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.

I can’t really say one positive thing about family member has done, because I have many kind and generous souls in my immediate and extended family. I don’t know how I’d be coping right now without their support.

This story has no illustrations, so you get today’s nature. First, two flowers and two bugs.

One recent positive thing has come about because my stepmother, who really resembles my late mother in so many ways, has moved into assisted living, this needing to downsize again. So, my stepsister got the fun job of going through her inheritance, or at least some of it, to see what she wanted and what could be passed on in some way.

Oh look, a butterfly. It’s a Phaon or Pearl Crescent.

When I got the call about Flo going into the smaller, safer, apartment, I never expected to be told that my stepsister wanted to give me all the jewelry my dad had given Flo. This is her inheritance, not mine! I was so touched at the offer. I’ll treasure whatever I receive. Dad had good taste in jewelry for a boy from the hills of Georgia.

The next call I got indicated there’s more than jewelry and that we need to meet somewhere to transfer it. Ooh. I guess I’m glad we have that storage container (really the issue is that Flo mainly owned very breakable objects that shouldn’t be shipped – I think I have enough big things already.

Anyway, this generosity is appreciated deeply. I admire Flo’s good taste so much, and I love her paintings. I’m so lucky that both she and Mom were painters (and other artistic endeavors). And yes, you can tell I’m a Baby Boomer, because I love family heirlooms. I don’t expect my offspring to be too interested in my treasures; they’ll make a GREAT estate sale, though.

And that’s my story! Today was another good one, and I’m glad I could help out my family a little myself!

Happy ladybug season (with silky evil ukulele and medick).

(Yes, D&L, I’m trying to come up with a plan. Love you both.)

Five Happy Things

What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?

I’m truly grateful to be surrounded by things that make me happy. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, every day is a good day, since I’ve never seen it before.

I never had a chicken inspect the tack room until today!

So, five everyday things that make me happy?

1. Being near trees. Trees always feel like my protectors.

Sometimes trees have birds in them. Double happiness!

2. Watching the dogs play. Penney and Carlton run and run while Goldie waits to tackle them.

3. Working on my journal. I love to write by hand, plus I get all my childhood arts and crafts joy back when I pick colored pens and washi tape stickers.

Journal of a few years ago. Not my bullet journal.

4. Putting on nail polish. That’s another simple way to be creative and play with colors. Hmm, knitting is the same kind of thing.

5. Moving around. I used to think I was a sedentary slug, but as I’ve gotten older I realize that I was always happy when moving around. I loved walking and riding my bike, then I loved aerobics and yoga, and now I love riding horses. I hope I can always walk, at least.

Horse update: Apache is still sore but can get around. He got painkillers today, though he didn’t like it much, so Mabel and Dusty are probably feeling good tonight.

Drew is still sore from all his injections, and he still has a few to go, but he should start feeling better very soon. I’m glad he’s being well cared for.

Everyone else is unhappy about flies and very happy about food.

As for me, my lower back is still unhappy. I may have to get it worked on. Ugh.

But I got my yearly recertification done for Master Naturalists, and I even went to a party yesterday, for my friend who’s retiring as the head of our local Chamber of Commerce. They will need two people to replace her! Neither of them will be me.

Oh, and today Anita and I went to a Hat Bar at a local shop. I should not have been introduced to this concept. Too much fun, again, probably because it reminds me of my childhood crafts obsession.

I’d love to know some everyday happiness YOU experience!

Maybe I’ll Ride Again!

What’s the most fun way to exercise?

No surprises here! I find riding horses to be the most fun way to exercise. That’s followed by grooming and feeding horses. (I also like hiking.) Now, I’m not doing a lot of riding right now, since Apache’s feet are healing and Drew is still “off.”

Today, Droodles headed off to the fancy vet in Bryan, because Tarrin said she’s not seeing the results we need with just the rehab they’ve been doing at her facility. I completely agreed, because his health is my first priority, whether being ridden or not.

He went with friends, including Tarrin’s very large personal horses, and Vapor, who’s been in rehab, too.

I was very impressed with how the vet evaluated Drew. He would manipulate Drew’s hindquarters then see how he trotted. It became clear that his left stifle, which is equivalent to a knee in a horse, was the problem. Drew made that clear.

After all this, Drew was taken inside for X-rays. We had his head looked at, too, to be sure his kick didn’t damage him. The vet was pretty sure the issue wasn’t Drew’s back, but they wanted to be sure.

Bonus shot: you can see his more gray mane coming in.

The X-rays showed that his head is good, and best of all, so is his spine! I saw it myself. Nice spacing. But, there’s something called synovitis, swelling on his stifle, which is like arthritis. Well, that sounds painful!

So, he got injections in his spine and stifle (I am not sure what they are) that should make him feel better until the swelling is down, which should be soon. He has a medication for equine arthritis called Adequan. Once he’s on that and gets the inflammation cycle under control, he won’t need injections again until he’s old, we hope.

Regan takes care of drugged Drew. He’s very relaxed after his X-rays and meds.

Whew. I think this will do the trick. Droodles will stay at Tarrin’s so she can administer the first doses of Adequan (by the way, $$$). He can come home in two weeks! And we should be able to resume lessons and such. Back to my favorite form of exercise!

I just hope he feels a lot better. What happened to him is the result of being ridden extensively as a two-year-old, poor guy.

Other Stuff

I picked up my Costco glasses after the vet was done. I got one wild and one mild. I love the red ones, even if my family is iffy on them. The black ones look all sedate, but I just noticed that on the sides, there are holographic stars and logo. Ha!

I didn’t get home until late, because I had to do a work meeting in the car (I have no backup) and then ran into a bad storm. Another one is about to hit. We need the rain, even if it messes with my horse schedule.

I did get to go out and enjoy birds between storms. The sparrows entertained as usual.

Best of all, I looked up to see a flock of…birds…fly right over my head. They looked like sea or shore birds, so maybe they’re the sandpipers I keep hearing as they pass through. Hmm. A mystery.

Another mystery: what causes all the white flowers along our road? These should be purple.

Thanks for reading all my veterinarian details. As I often do, I blogged this so I won’t forget it.

Can I Eclipse the Eclipse?

I know that people not in the parts of North America who didn’t see a total solar eclipse today are sick of hearing how awesome the one today was. And I admit that, having seen the annular eclipse last October I was pretty blasé about it.

Who could be blasé about this? Photo by my friend Jeff Tveraas. He has a good camera.

But, awesome is the right word. I was in awe during totality and couldn’t decide what was more fascinating, the corona and visible flares or how dark it got. The solar pool lights came on and I could see stars. Now only the aurora borealis remains on my weather bucket list.

We had to watch from my house, because I now have to take tomorrow off work. I can’t lose two days of pay, since I’m a contractor. But I think we got longer totality at home than where I was going to go.

To commemorate the big event, I did a project where I tried to photograph every flower blooming today. I missed the ground cherries by the horse pens because the rain arrived just as I was trying to feed. Didn’t want to ruin the phone! But, for your pleasure, here they are. I’ll break them up by color. Let’s start with white.

On to yellow. There’s always lots of yellow.

Let’s see what we have that’s pink.

Is there anything orange? Red?

Since blue flowers mostly look purple to me, I’ll put those two together.

This may not outshine the eclipse, but 32 types is sure a lot of interesting flowers (and insects). Thanks for indulging me.

By the way, the birds were indeed quiet during the eclipse totality, and I heard my first dickcissel of the year today. Auspicious!

Drew’s Reform School Report Card

You may remember that my beautiful gray gelding, Andrew or Drew or Droodles had some behavior issues brought on by an undetermined injury, so he had to go back to the trainer for remedial education. I’m just kidding, Tarrin and her team have been working to rehab him.

Note that he is still beautiful and much lighter than last year.

I’ve seen him when I take lessons with Apache, and of course I’ve been getting updates, but today was my first time seeing his progress. Tarrin wanted me to see how he’s doing and make sure I’m good with the next steps.

It was very windy today, which made him look glamorous.

One good thing about today was that, since I didn’t have an Apache lesson, Sara was able to bring Jhayati, who’s now 11 months old and learning manners. I arrived early for my lesson with Drew so I could watch how they work with the filly.

I’m pretty sure she’s as tall as Drew. Still mostly black, she’s getting gray.

They’re making lots of progress with Jhayati, who had a lot of stimuli and new experiences today, like being in a stall alone, wind and dust blowing, and other fillies to neigh at. I was happy to see how she’s doing in lead line and impressed with how well Sara is dealing with childish antics. It will be fun to watch her in the coming months.

As for Droodles, his report card shows that he’s improved a lot, but still has back pain that causes difficulty in turning right. His neck is much better, and he had another bodywork session today, which confirmed continuing issues.

He can relax while walking, but still snaps his head around sometimes.

He received a dose of a horse anti-anxiety drug whose name I can’t remember. It helps with serotonin uptake, and should let him be calmer around other horses. The combination of pain and horse hormones was making him quite annoying.

Tarrin rode him today and explained it’s mainly walking in straight lines with a little trot, to keep his muscles in shape. Turning right he had issues, and his left leg still shows signs of weakness, but he wasn’t pawing and asking to stop today, which he had been doing.

Because he’s still not 100%, Tarrin has made him an appointment to see the fancy vet in Bryan to look into whether he needs a shot in his back to ease pain until his damaged vertebrae fuse (damage caused by being ridden by heavy people at too young an age). She will also get his head looked at from where Fiona kicked him, and get his necessary vaccinations and Coggins test. That sounds like $$$$$. But, it may be what we need to get him to graduate back into a rideable horse.

Mostly I want him happy and comfortable. I e missed being able to groom, stroke, and ride him. He’s not going to be a hunter/jumper candidate, but Tarrin thinks once we get past this hurdle, we can have a long relationship. I hope so!

Meanwhile, I have Apache, whose feet seem a little sore after his trim. Tomorrow I’ll put his boots back on. It’s always something!

By the way, did you know grapes have flowers? Of course they do! But also, they smell wonderful. The little things mean a lot!

All Grown Up

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Ha, I’m pretty sure I wanted to be a horse when I grew up at that age. I know I tried eating grass, and spent time practicing my whinnies. I also wanted to be a dog herder. I would gather up all the neighborhood dogs and try to get them to follow me (no leash laws back then).

We want to herd cattle. Or play with them.

After that I wanted to be a veterinarian or Supergirl. As you see, I haven’t changed much, except now I write all those ideas down.

Things are good here:

Monarchs are here, plus I saw a big zebra swallowtail.
Our niece is not too badly hurt from getting kicked by Big Bag Betty B**** (a cow who m, deservedly, leaves for the sale barn soon) even though she was life flighted by helicopter to a hospital pretty far from her farm. (She posted the story, so for once I can do more than vague hinting.)
I had a great session with Apache the Paint today, better than usual, even. He sure has energy and joy now.
Tarrin has a plan to get my gray horse Drew better, which involves some expensive veterinary stuff, but gives me hope for our future.
There was time this afternoon to watch the dogs play with cows (nice ones) and to hang out on the patio with Lee. We are much less stressed than yesterday!

My herd, minus Harvey, who doesn’t play with cattle, and Vlassic, who was in the garage.

I wish every one of you at least one beautiful spring day to spend with those you love, and I hope your childhood dreams came true, at least a little. I can’t BE a horse or herd dogs, but I can hang out with them!

Saying Yes to No

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

Yet another item on my endless list of good things about getting older is that I finally realized that I always agreed to do things just because I was so flattered to be asked, combined with a deep desire to feel like I was a part of something. That has led me down some doozies of rabbit holes.

There’s probably more than one rabbit hole hiding in this photo.

I now realize I joined the nonprofit organization I used to work for mainly because I desperately wanted friends. I have never been passionate about the cause, though I did and still do respect it. I just never was a fanatic. So why I sacrificed my mental health and self esteem because I couldn’t say no to any of their requests is still puzzling to me.

I should have stopped and smelled the bluebonnets.

On the other hand, I did end up with lifelong friends. I have, however learned to say no to them when a request conflicts with my goal to remain safe from cultish behavior. I can help out a reasonable amount without harming myself.

I’ve also learned my friends still like me if I say no occasionally. Aha!

Recently I’ve said no in a lot of subtle ways that maybe only I notice. But wow, it feels great to go out after a long work and horse day and just relax rather than cooking or cleaning. I’m saying no to self-imposed obligations.

It’s more fun to look for verbena than count verbs in my writing.

Back to the original question, I have many interests, and to do any of them well has meant setting some aside. You can’t do it all. So I’m not starting quilting again or trying to garden. You won’t see me doing extensive meal planning , shopping, and prepping, even though I admire those who have the time. I’m not writing a book even though I could. And so on.

Why look, vervain! Who needs to garden when this stuff just shows up.

Learning your limits and narrowing down your passions to something manageable can lead to less stress. That leads to contentment and appreciation of what you can say yes to. So I say.

Don’t worry, bee happy (only that’s actually a soldier fly)

What do you think?

Speaking My Truth

What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?

I often wish I were better at expressing myself, especially in the heat of the moment, when under stress, or when surprised by an unexpected turn of events. These are the situations in which I tend to do a particularly poor job of expressing what I want to say or reacting gracefully. I also, conversely, tend to get too lax with my words when I’m feeling very relaxed or comfortable. I can then make jokes that don’t go over well or say things I intend as friendly that I later find out were interpreted as rude or condescending. Yuck.

It’s easy to be misinterpreted and also easy to misinterpret others. That’s why I attempt to assume people have good intentions when something awkward comes out of their mouths, and ask for clarification.

This Texas vervain says let’s slightly change the subject.

Speaking of misinterpretation, I may have mentioned hearing weird sounds in the woods lately. First I heard some while camping, but then I started hearing eerie sounds like a sad animal calling out.

It was a spooky day in the woods, anyway.

The sounds were happening this morning, so I bravely decided to go find the source. As I got closer, I kept seeing icky worms, tent moth caterpillars, and slimy mushrooms. The wind was also howling and it was very cloudy.

The caterpillars are jumping around in there

Eventually I got to where I could tell where the sound was coming from. And from that spot, Merlin Bird ID finally piped in and said it heard a crow. Earlier, no ID was given for the sound, which had made me think it was an animal. I looked up and saw I was under a large tree. And in that tree was a very large nest. Aha.

I was hearing crow parenting sounds! Eek! I recognized the nest, because I used to see them in Chicago between O’Hare and Schaumburg, when I worked there. There was a large green belt with a huge rookery I loved to observe.

I won’t be quite so creeped out by the sounds from now on and will leave the crows alone to raise future corvids. You just never know what’s out there.

Though today was gusty, I got to see new blossoms in addition to the creepy stuff.

Found where the baby blue eyes are hiding!

Since it was my rest day, I had time to cook a nice meal for family and friends. It was a nice end to the day.

Tomorrow, dental fun. Just a cleaning, but my insurance is messed up. My fault, too.

I’m Not Sure Who I’m More Proud Of

Hard work and persistence can pay off, and Apache and I learned that today. It’s been challenging and hard, but the two of us have actually managed to learn some things. We can communicate, we can rely on each other, and we can have fun.

He had been standing sort of funny this morning, so I was worried about his feet.

We rocked today’s lesson after Tarrin worked on his shedding soles.

This is after over an hour of me working on his shedding hair. He’s so soft now.

Tarrin was giggling like a kid and telling everyone how happy she was to see Apache shedding sole on his feet. He’d never done that before he started his medication. And the feet are white, not yellow! She found evidence of some bruising, which could explain why he hasn’t been to keen on picking his feet up. Now he should feel really good!

He got his boots back on so he can heal.

Anyway, once the hoof business was complete, we did our lesson stuff. Somehow, in the past month I’ve learned to ask him for a nice, soft trot, and he’s gotten enough muscles to do it. A few weeks ago he could do two or three steps in a rounded trot. Now he can do circles, and circles within circles, and slaloms…wow. It was so unexpected and good that I laughed aloud and snorted in a most undignified manner.

Apache seemed pretty pleased, too. And I feel somewhat competent. I’m even looking forward to doing a little better in the upcoming show. At least I now know how to do a rounded trot! If we execute it, so much the better. It will just be good to have a little more of a clue as to what we’re supposed to do, with different trot and walk speeds, good turns, and subtle cues.

And hey, it’s spring. How do I know? This guy showed up.

My magnificent tail and I have returned!

I am always happy to see scissor tail flycatchers each spring. And the barn swallows have taken over the porch from the house sparrows. Go bug eaters!