What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
Announcement: I don’t like to cook anymore. That’s my least favorite routine item. I enjoyed it when I was making meals for my kids and ex, who ate most foods and really seemed to appreciate my effort. Since the kids grew up I’ve lost my motivation to cook family meals, though folks often say they’re glad for the food.
Nope. Not making this. Photo from Pexels.
Some of my issue is that none of us need or want the same foods, due to health issues, allergies, and preferences. Since I’m not very creative, I can’t come up with meals. Nor do I have much time with animals to care for. Heck, I don’t even want to make meals for myself. I just want to eat stuff like fruit, yogurt, rice, and cheese.
My ideal meal. Just slap it on a board. Photo from Pexels.
I’m not sure how this all happened. It’s not my family’s fault. I’m just not motivated. Other things interest me more than food. (Unless I’m feeling extremely anxious like right now.)
Lagoons. They interest me.
What does interest me is nature, animals, reading, and knitting. Speaking of nature, I’m going to get better images from now on, with the macro lens Lee got me. It’s cool. I took pictures of small things.
That’s pretty.
I didn’t get to go try it out until late afternoon. I had a lot of work to do and I wasn’t feeling mentally well. I had nightmares all night about being afraid of people around me. Where did that come from? Lee has had CNN on again. Their coverage gets me scared sometimes. Sure, I’m easily frightened, but it’s worse when there’s justification.
Must breathe.
Anyhow, the lens is great fun now that I’ve figured it out. I love how it focuses. Hilton Head is a good place to see small flora and fauna.
Two butterflies!It’s in focus!Macro lens tryout
When spring comes around, I’ll be all over the flowers and insects back at the ranch. I hope, at least, to be able to! The beauty will still be there. It’s timeless.
Timeless, like the sea.
Sending love, and understanding to each of you who has a secret part of their daily routine they’re not fond of. I can’t be alone in being bored by cooking!
Yesterday was very windy along the beach. I had a pretty hilarious hair day.
Good thing my hair is the color of the sand now, since lots ended up in it.
Something in watching the wind sweep the beach clean made me think. It doesn’t take much to at least deflect the winds of change. Look at how tiny obstacles caused bumps yesterday.
Deep thoughts.
With all that wind and sand (neither of which are my favorites) I decided to move inland. It is a lot quieter on the residential/rental streets, as long as no one is running a gas-powered leaf blower (another non-favorite thing).
Plus there were butterflies!
I was enjoying the big and little houses, the squirrels, and some birds, when I realized the road I was on bordered a long lagoon. A big hint was the sign proclaiming it to be Lagoon Road.
The lagoon was hidden by lots of trees, which explains why there were so many birds around.
First lagoon was sorta dark and spooky.
The area also had some huge oak trees, some of the largest I’ve seen here. And amid all the fancy houses was a small A-frame house with beehives. This experience helped me get my daily grounding plus some.
I couldn’t get a good angle on this huge treeVery tall. My idea of a fine tree. Bees!Bird! Blossom!Sights
One negative of this long walk was that I managed to blister my tors on my left foot. But hey, I made up for leaving my watch at home earlier! I was the beneficiary of a good deed when the bartender gave me a bandage from their first aid kit. I returned the favor by listening to two very drunken rich women telling me their life stories and how much better they predict the US will be soon. I said I hope so. That’s true.
Pansies are for thoughts. I didn’t share mine. What would that help?
Today’s morning walk, which was cut short by rain, featured two lagoons! I turned down a side road, because I heard a Red-shouldered Hawk and a Blue Jay.
I had opinions. Scree!
It turned out to be a quiet street with quiet condos. One had a contented Great Egret enjoying the nearby fountain.
Hello.
Right past the heron was an empty lot, where it looked like a building once was. It had a small lagoon and was surrounded by pines and hardwoods. There were dozens and dozens of songbirds and woodpeckers flitting around the trees and myrtle shrubs, along with various crows with very important agendas, I assumed. I stayed a long time, just watching all the action. Those Yellow-rumped Warblers were busy, busy, busy.
It rained a while, but I hid under a pine tree. Beautiful spot!That’s a wrenMale Cardinal Juvenile CardinalPrimrose of some kind. Captivating lagoon
I followed the lagoon past where it ended, and lo, there was a connected lagoon. This was a dark, moody area with crowded vegetation around it. I saw a turtle and some fish, but mostly I watched squirrels and birds. I saw yet another Gray Catbird, and even a Hermit Thrush. I bet no one at the Holiday Inn Express next door even notices this little treasure. I did! It keeps me grounded (and it helped that I leaned on a welcoming oak, too.)
Looks isolated but is next to a hotel. So dark. Catbird on bambooI think it’s a Downy Woodpecker. One final lagoon
I’m sure enjoying searching out these little pockets of nature. Admittedly, I look forward to Lee arriving so we can drive some. I even ordered him some food to eat when he arrives. One day at a time is working out fine.
What you do on a hard day is what you do every day. You put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. You persevere.
I hope I and those I love can stay safe and free to be ourselves.
Is there still room for all of us?
I’m glad I had my relatives for one last meal together this evening. We made it a very good one at a beautiful harbor-side restaurant. I’ll miss them, but not trying to navigate with conflicting sets of directions. We did laugh a little, make that a lot.
I know this blog has been dull lately. I’m in more of a survival mode than a creative one. But I’m not going to stop noticing the good around me and sharing it. Some beautiful images from today.
A late cicada!Howdy. Egret reflectionI didn’t know these plants bloomed cWindow cleaning. Beach path.
Bonus: Lee has been trying out the new camera and found some photos of New Mexico from the first time we went.
Petroglyph. People will persist. World’s largest pistachio, base.
I got this book, with the complete title of Navigating Rocky Terrain: Caves, Karsts, and the Soul of Unseen Spaces, at the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting last week. It’s a 2024 book by Laurie Roath Frazier, a fellow Master Naturalist in the chapter that hosted the meeting. She wrote the essay collection while dealing with a series of the holes her losses caused in her life by finding healing in the cracks and crevices of the Texas Hill Country, a landscape very familiar to me, where I also found comfort in hard times.
Since I’m also a huge fan of the unique features of the karst formations I lived in for 25 years, I figured I’d enjoy reading about Roath’s quests and observations. I didn’t expect to be so moved by her work with her inner rocky terrain. It reminded me so much of when my life was fractured by divorce, mental health challenges (mine and a child’s), and fear for the future.
She’s a good writer, though I wish there was more of an arc connecting the essays and that there was some resolution to pieces of her life—like, what happened with her birth family? But I enjoyed both the personal parts and the more scientific information about caves, limestone, bats, lakes, and crevices. And of course, it was nice to read about the Sacred Springs in San Marcos, where I’d just had such a moving experience.
If you’re a fan of nature, geology, or personal growth, you’ll enjoy this little book and support a Master Naturalist!
I hope to share it with friends!
Something else I’ll treasure from the meeting last week: I now can tell you that this is a female house fly. Yep. Males’ eyes look like one big eye.
The Common Mestra (Mestra amymone) is a butterfly I’ve been seeing very often this autumn. I went on and on about it the first time I saw one.
The Mestra
Since then, they’ve been everywhere, including parks I’ve visited, flitting here and there and enjoying the broomweed and frog fruit in particular. I’d never seen them before this year.
It’s pretty and orange on the underwings.
I’ve been trying to get better pictures of them, since I wanted to write about them. However, they are very busy looking for nectar or places to lay eggs, or something. I wonder if they’re able to find what they need, with no rain here all month.
You wouldn’t know it, but there are at least a half dozen in this photo of the Hermits’ Rest woods.
I looked up information on these delicate beauties. These Mestra live from our area down through Panama.
According to the descriptions in various websites, they like lantana flowers, but those are no longer blooming here. I go to wondering about their lifecycle this week as we saw dozens of Mestra at the Springtail Ridge hike.
This one shows the orange border nicely.
One of the women I was BioBlitzing with found a resource that said their host plant is Tragia or noseburn. I hadn’t looked up the common name for Tragia when I first read up on these butterflies. Suddenly it all made sense.
Tragia urticifolia, or Nettleleaf Noseburn growing in our woods.
This year was a really good one for this plant thanks to having more rain this summer than usual. This may have meant more Mestra eggs hatched this year than usual. All the women I talked to live in central Texas where there was this same rain pattern. They’ve all seen more of these than usual. One woman who’s been in Texas a long time remembered another year with lots of Mestra, then they went away until this year.
My guess is that good years for noseburn (not our most pleasant plant otherwise) mean good years for Common Mestra. I’ll be on the lookout next year to see if this is true.
After I got home from San Marcos, I was happy to get home to my birds and woods. I even heard a Swainson’s Hawk to greet me. I spent an hour or so taking photos of pollinators, since the Bioblitz ends today. I found more butterflies than I’ve been seeing lately, plus bees and wasps.
BuckeyeCrow featherThere’s a Pileated Woodpecker nest up there!Dry ranchMore drynessBack pondQueenAsterI think it looks like a dragonSkipperHairstreakLonghorn beeA cloud!!Katydid
I look forward to a week with my dog and horse buddies and to ordering reading material to supplement what I learned last week, like Val Plumwood, Paul Taylor, and Paul Shepherd. I wrote those here so I won’t lose their names.
Yes. Walking is my favorite exercise. That’s clear to anyone who reads this little blog. Second is horseback riding. You get exercise and don’t even notice, because your brain is so engaged.
My favorite horse riding photo.
I get itchy if I don’t get my walking in. That became very obvious when I had Covid and in the weeks afterwards when my stamina left. However, today I did a LOT of sitting, since this was the only day of the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting when I didn’t have any field sessions. I walked around the hotel as fast as I could and got out for a ten-minute walk between sessions. Better than nothing, though, and it helped me make my move goal.
The oak tree I found in the parking lot is not native. It’s a Mexican white oak.
Let me say this; it was worth sitting around all day. I learned so much that I’ll use in the future today! This has really been a great conference, which I’m glad for since I’ve had to miss another conference with many friends.
Interpretation, not what you think.
Two of the sessions I attended were about interpretation. My mom would be pleased, since she always thought I was going to school to be an interpreter (I was a linguistics major). Note that the sessions were about interpretation of nature or historical locations. I want to be better at leading nature and bird walks at our new bird sanctuary.
Levels of experience you can help people achieve.
I have good ideas for stories I can tell to facilitate learning in different audiences.
Two other sessions I attended were about creatures I’m fond of, spiders and flies. Both were by the same woman, a nature writer whose stuff I’m familiar with from the Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, Sheryl Smith-Rodgers. She’s entertaining, though her presentations are relentlessly paced. I could have used more depth.
One new thing I learned.
I especially liked some of her videos, many of which she took herself. There was one on a peacock spider that was extra cute, and one extreme closeup video of a mosquito (which is a fly) getting blood out of someone. It was both fascinating and nauseating.
The other thing I learned was how to tell a male from a female fly. Females have a gap between their compound eyes.
I wish I had videos of these presentations so I could look at the pictures more.
Another session I learned a lot from was on what lives in the aquifer under San Marcos. They get samples of what comes up from an old artesian well and analyze them.
The well in question.
I knew vaguely that there were blind cave salamanders, but, wow, there are all sorts of living things under the water in the limestone. It ranges from shrimp to snails to relatives of pill bugs. They’re all blind and colorless.
Look at that salamander.
I think my brain got full today. I’m glad I could just enjoy dinner with nice folks, including my chapter friend Linda Jo. They gave out many, many awards, and I got to stand up for hitting 1,000 volunteer hours last year. Of course, that was dwarfed by two guys who hit 30,000 hours. Linda Jo and I think we started too late to get to that one. Also, we have other things in our lives.
Our program got an international award, though, and our bat monitoring program was voted the best master naturalist program in the US. Impressed.
I’ve had a darned good time even if I didn’t get much exercise today. I do look forward to heading home tomorrow to find out how the animals and people are holding up.
My idea of a thrill may not be yours. For me, seeing a new natural environment with new flora and fauna is often thrilling to me. Today’s field trip was to Ringtail Ridge Natural area, west of San Marcos. What an interesting spot!
The Bioblitz participants.
We did a Bioblitz as part of the Texas Master Naturalist annual meeting set up by the Nature Trackers staff. The park was big enough that we could all disperse and not be on top of each other. I ended up with three excellent birders, and a good time was had by all.
Our selfie
We heard and saw warblers, a Kestrel, and many Black-crested Titmice. Finding interesting plants was a little harder, because it’s so dry right now, but we could tell this place is beautiful in spring and early summer. The topography was interesting, with many berms and old stone walls.
This velvet-leaf mallow really has velvety leaves. Beautiful Brasil plant. Hackberry, beloved by insects. Dry but pretty. The land
Most of the thrills came from insects, which we found plenty of. There were so many common mestra butterflies that in one place it looked like fairies having a convention. There were also many goatweed leaf wings and caterpillars galore. One caterpillar was huge. It looked like a big ole hotdog chomping on a vine. It’s a future Vine sphinx moth. Spectacular!
MestraMestraMestraGoatweed leaf wingVine sphinx caterpillarIt was so big! The adult mothA chrysalis?Definitely a chrysalis Bold jumping spider eating a cactus bugGiant milkweed bugsSalt marsh moth caterpillar The insects
We also found nests and not just bird nests! There were many turtle nests, too, with little eggshells. We had fun.
Eventually we returned to the hotel, where I did two normal conference sessions, one on how to have difficult discussions as Master Naturalists and one on nightjars (like Chuck-will’s widows and nighthawks. Such interesting and little studied birds.
Love it. Mike Mitchell not being controversial Look at that mouth.
The dinner presentation was by Jeff Gessas, one of the leaders of the leaders of yesterday’s moving session. I loved watching him talk, as he reminded me so much of my estranged older son, also a philosopher. Geez. They’re the same age. Still, I learned a lot that resonated with me.
Biocultural Conservation
It was a fun day, and I even got to hang out with folks from my chapter a bit!
Our little contingent managed to get together. Mark from Bastrop and I both hit 1,000 hours. I met him the day we planted all the flowers.
Whew. I’m a tired gal. But it was fun getting that way and I was rewarded with a pleasant evening.
Seeing a Common Mestra made my day.
It’s time for the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting. So I drove to the Shield Ranch somewhere in Southwest Travis County or Hays County to start my activities. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but it looked like an interesting spot in the field session description.
It had an interesting stump that looks like an animal head.
When I got there (after having to go through rush hour in west Austin) I found that the session included doing some dirty work. And there I was in my white shirt. Silly me.
That’s me in the white shirt holding the seed sack.
But we intrepid volunteers all had a good time, I think. We prepared ground with topsoil and composted horse manure (much lifting, wheelbarrow wrangling, raking and mixing). I mostly threw native plant seeds appropriate to the part of the world where the ranch is on top of that mix. It sounds easy but that seed bucket was heavy. My left arm is telling me that, right now.
Seed buckets. There was also rye grass seed.
Once that was done, mulch was used to hide the seeds from birds. This was on the roadside, where plants have not been growing. It should be really nice if it ever rains the seeds in. We did well!
Preparation and the final result.
After the work, we ate our sack lunches in the impressive dining pavilion. It’s all solar powered and all the water is harvested rainwater. There’s no air conditioning, but it was perfectly pleasant inside. And at one end was a garage door of windows that could be cranked open, to be replaced by screens. Very clever.
View from side window
I ate with a very nice older woman named Annie who was Texan in the best way, full of stories of her farm upbringing and funny relatives. I just had the nicest time talking to her.
Beautiful little bluestem prairie area as seen from the garage doors.
After we ate we went on tour of the site, which hosts camps for underprivileged young people, we took a hike along the creek then up the escarpment to see the meadows. There were many interesting plants, though they were pretty shriveled from the drought.
Picnic areaEntrance Hand washing station, which we needed. Donor wall. Really well done. Small solar panelsCamping cabinEvaporative toilet Explanation Bathroom area with another sink area. The back of the toilet system. Fascinating. Rick wall left from early white settlersThis is the fire road. So pretty. Native landscape plant and skipperSo Iran bumblebee. Very striped. More gradToothleaf goldeneye Yellow ckematisCreek has small amount of water Texas persimmon tree.
Oh, I meant to mention that a Master Naturalist chapter did the welcoming and very decorative plantings around the facility. It’s all native plants, teeming with life, but as attractive as a traditional landscape. They did great work. photos are above.
The drive to San Marcos, where the meeting is being held, was quite enjoyable, mostly on back roads. There were many huge ranches with ornate fencing and gates. Combined with their concrete driveways, you knew lots of money was being used for these spreads. Also there were numerous neighborhoods of very large homes. Land must be less expensive in the Buda area.
When the hour-long drive ended, I collapsed in my very comfy room. It’s a corner suite, which matters because I’m at one of those atrium hotels with all the echoes. Most suites have windows facing the hallway, which is loud. Mine looks out in the back (quiet) side of the hotel, where I can see how much the area has grown since I came here 15 years or so ago for a UU women’s conference. I feel old!
That used to be corn
I did venture back out, because we get two free drinks per night! I’m so glad I did, because I ended up talking to the woman in front of me in the drinks line for a long time. We ended up having a great conversation about all sorts of things, even horses! She’s learning dressage. I couldn’t have had a nicer time.
Happy couch time
Now I hope I can sleep. I didn’t last night! That was inconvenient insomnia. Tomorrow’s field session involves mindfulness and wetlands. Hmm. And later, glass-bottom boats at the beautiful former Aquarena Springs.
You thought I was such a peaceful, nonviolent person. I am, or I try to be. But I have my limits. Pantry moths have always pushed my limits, and lately they have made the Hermits’ Rest much less restful.
They sure can reproduce! AI prompt: create a romantic image of pantry moths.
We always have a few pantry moths, because they come in with food. We try to seal or put in the fridge things we know they love, but we mess up. I’m just not great at cleaning every square inch of pantry, and some containers I think are airtight turn out otherwise. Sigh. There’s a reason, says the Wikipedia article on Indian meal moths:
The larvae of this species have the ability to bite through plastic and cardboard so even sealed containers may be infested.
Oh. Turns out my nemesis is not from India. There’s something called Indian meal. I didn’t know that, either. It loves grains, nuts, flour, bread and cloth. No wonder moths showed up in the bedroom closet..
Grrr.
The issue is that some dog food bag that Lee bought had a lot of moths in it. And they bred like crazy. We’d be watching television with moths distracting us. I’d go to bed and have to slap moths attracted to my phone. They were in the shower. And the toilet (at least those were dead). They were everywhere. Yuck.
My friend Pamela told me about a product that worked for her, but I kept forgetting to order it. Last week I finally remembered. Every day I told the family the moth death was coming. Yes, I wanted to kill. Not very Buddhist of me.
Great name, huh. Notice I bought a bunch of them. Amazon Prime Deal Days!
But I’m willing to give up a bit of karma to live a home life with only an occasional pantry moth. I opened the box and set out the traps. Apparently, sexy moth pheromones immediately began wafting around the pantry, kitchen, living room…and everywhere.
Five minutes after setting the trap out.
Interesting fact: the sexy traps only attract male moths. But without the males, they can’t breed. The literature said that we’d still see some females and new ones after the last eggs hatch, but soon we’d be ok.
24 hours later.
The results have been better than I expected. I don’t see a flutter of moths every time I walk into a room. The bathroom mirror has zero resting moths. The television is watchable (unless Dallas Cowboys are playing).
Moth free TV.
This is only in 24 hours! Dear readers, if you have even an average pantry moth problem, clean the cabinets then order Dr. Killigan’s. He also has a product for the evil moths that eat wool, say, your handmade socks and the yarn to make them. I have experience with these, too. I bought a few of these murder by smell devices, just in case the ones upstairs are that kind.
Thank you, pheromones.
I really didn’t expect such as improvement so quickly. I’ve only seen a couple of moths today. What a relief. I’m a killer, I know. But I’m pretty sure there are plenty of others out there, probably in another bag of dog food.
I have no idea what that AI bag is supposed to say.
I’m tired so this is quick. The two halves of my day differed greatly. In the first half, I spent a few hours at the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary with Ann. We got some excellent new birds to add to the list of sightings there, and did a bit of Bioblitz action as well.
Look at my giant carpenter bee!
We spent time with Gene and Cindy, who were working at selling chickens until we got to them to talk about wild birds. We went over designs for interesting benches to put out in the seating area to replace some rickety ones.
This is a Leopold bench, named after a famous naturalist who made them for bird watching.
We also talked about a logo. I’d used the AI software they want us to use at work to generate a few ideas. We are going with this one, with different colors.
It should be legible and look good in monochrome.
After all our decisions, I went into Cameron to the annual Steak Stein and Wine event. I got a couple of holiday gifts, which I’m proud of. Such a planner! And I got kettle corn, a snow cone, and later a peach Bellini, frozen. Mm.
As always, I enjoyed the car show. This is a Morris pickup truck conversion. Ooh. Want.
But I also was brave. I supported my friends y volunteering at the booth for the county Democratic Party. Why did I do this, if I’m avoiding politics? Honestly, it’s to let others know we are here and just normal people. We had no candidate signs or pamphlets, just a code you could scan to sign up for the mailing list. Mostly people ignored us or were polite, and we had a few nice conversations. Only after the drinking started did one guy get ugly, and I was gone by then.
I did fine.
I am proud for not totally hiding, to maybe encourage others to not be afraid. You shouldn’t be afraid in this country. I’m still going to respect your opinions if they differ from mine, especially if you’ve thought it out. we need to respect each other!
The event also included giant Dairy Queen treats!
I got to have dinner (the steak part of the festival) with family and workers at our nephew’s business. That means I got to see and talk to my son! And the food was better this year, especially the mashed potatoes.
All in all, it was a good, but long, day. I enjoyed seeing friends and acquaintances and was brave!
The Hermits' Rest 