Plant Sightings – Page 46 – The Hermits' Rest

Mellow Yellow Overload

Now, for something completely different. I did a fun (to me) project yesterday that didn’t require any human contact nor leaving the property where our office is. I decided to see how many different yellow flowers I could find in the weed/wildflower collection known as our empty lot. As you can see, I managed to fill a whole screen in iNaturalist!

Most of the field LOOKS purple, because there is so much storks-bill growing in it, but when you look closer and closer, the yellows dominate (purple is in second place, with field madder and a little patch of grape hyacinth that must be left over from when there was a house here – I plan to replant them in the “flower bed” I’m making).

What have we got? Let’s take a look. Many of these flowers look really similar, but are different sizes or have other subtle differences.

Common Dandelion. Taraxacum officinale. Delicious and nutritious. Bees love them.

False Dandelion.
Pyrrhopappus pauciflorus. Plus a tiny wasp and tinier beetle.

Prickly Sowthistle Sonchus asper. It’s everywhere. And very prickly. Note that there are aphids or something on it.

Smooth Cat’s Ear. Hypochaeris glabra. Looks like a teeny dandelion on a very long stem. Compare to the first dandelion and you’ll see how small it is.

Cutleaf Evening Primrose. Oenothera laciniata. Smaller than most evening primrose, but a beautiful buttery yellow.

Crete Weed. Hedypnois cretica. I thought it was a dandelion, but look at the leaf and the cool petal shape.

Woodsorrels. Genus Oxalis. I’m not sure which one it is, but it’s certainly oxalis. Sour tasty leaves!

Bur Clover. Medicago polymorpha. It’s about finished blooming and starting to make burs. Yellow is a hard color for my camera, and I couldn’t get a good shot of these.

Straggler Daisy. Calyptocarpus vialis. Lots of leaves, tiny flowers. They are pretty up close, though.

I got a lot of bugs and other things, but I’m just going to leave this parade of yellow-ness alone, in all their glory. I’ll see what other themes I can come up with over the next few weeks as all the flowers bloom away.

Book Report: Stories of Your Life, and Others

Well, we have plenty of time to read books, at least most of us do right now. I had a big backlog of magazines when I got back from vacation, but I finally got around to finishing this month’s book club book, Stories of Your Life, and Others, by Ted Chiang. I am told by the book cover that “Story of Your Life,” was the basis of the movie Arrival. I have not seen it, but now that I realize it’s about linguistics, I probably should!

It was a nice change of pace, because it’s a collection of science fiction stories rather than a novel or work of nonfiction. We were only supposed to read a couple of the stories, but since they turned out to be right up my alley, I read the whole book.

Chiang is a very scientific science fiction writer, which I enjoy a lot. I also like that he just changes one or two things about “normal” life in many of the stories, which makes it very easy to immerse yourself into them and think about what your own life would be like in that version of Earth.

For example, there’s a story in which angels, Heaven and Hell are all real, called “Hell Is the Absence of God.” Angles are always showing up and messing with people. I decided very quickly how I’d lead my life in THAT world. I’d probably have gotten myself to Hell as fast as possible. It seemed nice. But what an interesting world it was!

The title story is all about a linguist figuring out an alien language. The results were predictable if you know how language and the brain works, but it was still fun to read.

In another story, “Seventy-two Letters,” science was more like alchemy combined with the kabbalah or magic, where names could bring things to life. The way human reproduction worked there was very different, but logically consistent. That would also be a fun world to live in for a linguist.

My favorite of all the stories in the book wasn’t about linguistics, really, but about the science behind the “Tower of Babel,” as if the world was like in the Old Testament, and you really could build a tower to Heaven. The ending was GREAT, and I just loved all the people in this world.

I guess I’ll be reading his next book, even though I’m told it isn’t quite as outstanding as this one. Any of you who’d like to go immerse yourselves in another world, though, should run out and get this paperback, or get it in Kindle. All the stories are fun and get your mind thinking about possibilities of how things just might have been on another timeline.

Remorse Is Complicated and Unhealthy

When I saw that remorse was the UU Lent word to think about today, I got a sinking feeling. There’s something I’m familiar with and that I’ve really had to grapple with a lot.

Remorse is a distressing emotion experienced by a person who regrets actions which they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or wrong. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment.
The Wikipedia

The key here is that remorse has to do with something that a person deems to have been wrong, not that anyone else might necessarily view it that way. And the part about guilt and self-directed resentment sounds really, really familiar to me. I don’t know that remorse is something we should be cultivating for good mental health.

Way too much of my life, this was my internal monologue.

I know. I did some things in my twenties that really were unfair to people I loved, hurt them, and in retrospect, I see are very wrong, even though I couldn’t see it at the time in my immature and very confused mental state.

The remorse I felt after that led me down a path of further poor decisions, because I was so upset with myself that I felt I didn’t deserve to look for a happy life, a good job, or close friendships. I felt like I’d just let everyone down. And the poor self image my remorse led to absolutely ensured I’d lose friends, chase away partners, and treat myself unkindly. Ugh.

The Instagram of the day. I did love that poopy, butt-scooting pug.

It took a lot of work after my divorce from my children’s dad to learn to forgive myself of my mistakes and stop trying to make it all better for people I disappointed. I learned to move forward and learn how to deal with my hormones and childhood abandonment issues in a respectful, adult way (with the occasional totally human slip-up).

If you are feeling bad about yourself, you can get to a new place, too. Therapy is your friend. So is Brene Brown.

Right now, I’m experiencing periodic remorse about what happened to my relationship with my older son. I’m not even sure if I did something awful or he’s embarrassed about something or what. I try to stick to sadness over the loss of a relationship to dear to me, rather than blaming myself or imagining hurtful things I might have done. It’s tough. Remorse is hard.

Spiderworts behind the Pope Residence say hello, and are happy, even after being mowed.

Enough brutal honesty for one day, right? I’d love to hear your thoughts. enjoy some flowers.

It’s a parasite, but it feels no remorse (Texas paintbrush). At the Hermits’ Rest.

Rolling with the Changes

Change. I guess most of us are dealing as best as we can with all the changes to our daily routines. Nobody doing the UU Lent challenge will have any trouble with this as a prompt.

My friend Sara posted this message. A good one.

I’ve been trying to put things into perspective. There are always changes and challenges, big and small. My generation is lucky to not have been hit by something that requires sacrifice in a long time. But we managed 911 and the threat of atomic bombs and so on. If we stick together, we’ll handle the virus crisis.

I’m very glad for the perspective on change that my I’ll-timed trip has given me. It’s let me see that even from one week to the next, our planet changes. On the way out, the trees were bare and only white trees and red maples were blooming.

Still some beautiful white trees are in bloom.

Now, it’s a riot of colors. There is yellow jessamine throughout the trees, oaks and elms are going crazy, and the beautiful red bud trees say hello through the diverse woodlands we are driving through. Every week the show changes, and soon enough autumn colors will arrive.

I think this is why it’s so good to go out in nature, especially now. You can see the big picture and remember you and your problems aren’t the center of the Universe.

Not a bad view. We’re rolling along in the Mobile Social Isolation Unit!

I haven’t had too much to write about for a while, but I know there will be lots of changes to come once we get home. I can’t wait to see the progress on our offices, assuming that’s still going on. And then I hope to share more about our next project. Life will go on, even though I’ll be confined to home and the office.

Roll with those changes, friends.

I Don’t Dance

Nope. At least very rarely. I’m not coordinated and I’m also sort of embarrassed about it. So the UU Lent word for today sent me off in a different direction.

My step mom’s painting is like color dancing.

I love watching dances that come up around me. Flowers blowing in the wind. Vultures circling. Starling murmurations. Wind in trees. Clouds racing across the sky that’s my fancy dancing.

I’m not sure why I prefer watching dancing to doing it. I did fail miserably at ballet. And when I got older, I sang rather than dancing. Now that I’m older, maybe I’ll be less inhibited.

But wait! Just for this blog, I ran on top of the I73 Rest Stop living roof and danced!

I’ll blog more later. I’m enjoying scenery I’ve never seen before North and South Carolina.

Slowly Trudging across the USA

Whew! I have a hint for you: don’t travel east the day the time springs forward, especially with someone who’s a slow starter in the morning. Today has been long, and we’re still 2 hours from our destination for the night. Vacations are fun!

We took the northern route, via I40. It’s mostly under construction. Lots of stopping next to big trucks. I’m very glad I’m a patient traveler.

I’ve enjoyed the scenery a lot. Much of yesterday I looked at so many beautiful wild plums. Or pears? I didn’t get close enough. Maybe it was both. They bloom such a short period of time, I felt lucky.

At the Arkansas welcome station I got to see pretty pansies, too.

The best scenery, though, were dogs up for adoption we saw when we stopped for lunch. I got lots of great ideas for MTOL there. They had a storefront donated to them so adoption days are good in all weather. And they have their own van.

Today all the trees were pink or red. I think it’s red maples. They are subtle but beautiful in the sun.

The worst part of today was driving through the area east of Nashville, Tennessee. The tornado damage from last week’s huge storms went on for miles. I’ve seen a lot, and this is the most damage I’ve ever seen from one system. I couldn’t bear to take pictures; I felt so sad for the people there.

The Tennessee welcome station had a river, violets, and tiny field pansies. I love both of those!

Then came all the slowdowns. At least the last one was in the middle of the mountains, and I could roll down the windows and listen to the river rapids.

It just goes to show you that even traffic jams can be interesting. It’s all in your attitude!

Where Do You Find Sanctuary?

Ah, the word for today is sanctuary on the UU Lent calendar. As I am sitting inside one of my personal sanctuaries as I type this, I didn’t have a hard time coming up with things to photograph for this concept.

My office at the ranch, with my favorite chair ever, my favorite couch, art I love, a stool my dad made, and much safety.

What I realized soon after starting to think about sanctuaries is that I truly crave them. I make myself a sanctuary wherever I go. In Austin, it’s my bedroom, where again, I have things I care about and a cozy place to sit and read or knit. I’ve turned my office at the Hermit Haus into a sanctuary with all my colors and all my nature stuff. Even in the horrible “open office” thing at work in Austin, I’ve tried to create a place of calm.

This is when it was in use as a church. They took that nice lighted thing in the back.

Heck, I even OWN a sanctuary, but not in the same meaning of the word. The old church sanctuary still gives me a bit of a chill, so it won’t be a haven for peace and reflection for me for a while yet.

I feel like a wealthy person when I realize how many places I can retreat to when I need to. I need to retreat a lot, which is how I keep as even-tempered as I manage to do (though Chris said I had a negativity attack yesterday).

To help with office negativity, I went and made myself a sanctuary at the Pope Residence. I drug a chair and a bench out on the balcony, where I can look at the big magnolia tree and survey the churches of Cameron. I spent a nice time listening to the many grackles, four woodpeckers, and a loud mockingbird. Triumph in the sanctuary department!

Of course, Lee and I built our very own sanctuary here at the ranch. The Hermits’ Rest is most definitely his safe place, and I’m not far behind (I just have more places). My Instagram post for today shows me enjoying coffee in the only side of the house not dealing with hurricane-style winds.

I had pretty much everything I needed here!

It’s a real privilege to have your own physical areas of sanctuary like I do. I think of people in Syria, people in abusive situations in the US, so many others in crisis who don’t have anywhere to go where they feel safe. No wonder so many people just retreat inside themselves; they have nowhere else to go.

I feel safe here. So grateful for the Hermits’ Rest.

Everyone deserves to be able to escape and refresh and renew their souls. Those of us who have the chance to should cultivate and care for our sanctuaries, because we are lucky to have them. One way to do good in the world is to help bring peace and safety to others.

How would you do this? Where is your sanctuary? Is it physical or mental?

Bio Blitzing and Mental Gaps

Today’s big activity (and ONLY activity, thankfully) was to go to a local park and do our very first bioblitz in Milam County. That’s where you find as many plants and animals in a specific place at a specified time. I had a lot of fun, though there was a lot of cat herding involved and I didn’t do a very good job of trying to teach what I wanted to teach. If you want some photos and such, visit the blog article I wrote for the group.

I enjoyed hanging around with my old and new friends, and sure found a lot of plants that were hard to identify, but I guess that’s part of the fun. If you want to see what plants, animals, and birds we found, you can visit the little project we created for our bioblitz.

Chickasaw plum is one of the first trees to bloom here.

After the blitzing, we came back to our office, where it was warmer, to talk about uploading our findings, then a few of us had a quick lunch. There I was a bit disturbed at myself. I could not remember things. The entire topic of the mind blindedness I wrote about just last week completely escaped my mind. I blanked out on the names of a couple of people I knew, too.

More and more often I find myself coming up with a big hole where I was certain a word, fact, or memory should be. I’m not declaring myself to have dementia or anything, but it sure is annoying. It’s hard to know when you’re just tired, and it’s normal, or when there’s something actually wrong.

So, if you know me, let me know if I’m drifting off.

Look. Insects doing it. I actually typed “insexts” at first. They are crane flies.

ANYWAY, I did get to take my friend Dorothy to see the Pope House, and there we found beautiful stairs! I was pretty excited and ran up them.

Stairs! Indoors! Safe! photo by Dorothy Mayer

The steps themselves are really pretty. Chris made them bull-nosed, so they have a lot of class. I can’t wait to see what next week brings. Until then, I am officially resting, reading, and maybe even knitting for a while. I hope I remember what I’m doing.

Those steps are gorgeous, and nice and deep, too.

Happy Salad, Happy Imbolc

I’m a happy gal today. I went to the doctor for my checkup and was declared in “excellent health for a woman your age.” Thanks, I think. Some more lab tests got done and I have to get a mammogram tomorrow (making me wonder if she found something).

But, yay, I was so happy I got the happy salad for lunch!

It was happy, though I put on too much dressing.

I also couldn’t help but be cheered up by the weather today. In this part of Texas, February 1 is when you start to see the sweet-smelling flowers blooming. When I stepped out of the work building for my daily walk, I was hit by the smell of these little power-houses of smell.

Then, just around the corner I smelled grape Kool-Aid! The Texas mountain laurels have started to bloom!

While the knockout roses were pretty, they didn’t smell, but that’s okay, the sweet alyssum and phlox made up for it.

They remind me of me, perhaps a bit too colorful.

No wonder Imbolc (celebrated on February 1 in the Celtic festivals) is my favorite holiday. It symbolizes light arising from the darkness, and here that means flowers! I’ll give some to my Brighid statue today (it’s St. Bridget’s Day on February 1, too). (Note that Anita’s favorite holiday is Groundhog Day, so we have two days in a row to celebrate.)

Anyway, remember to take care of yourself, turn off the news, and look around you. There’s always something out that that will lift your spirits.

Does Volunteering Count as Recharge Time?

Yep. I’m sort of resting as I spending my usual first Saturday of the month at the thrift store. Gotta help those local dogs and cats! Resting with restless young teens is not all that restful, but we have been enjoying our friend Meghan’s twin teens try to fill their time as they help out. They are at that awkward age between child and hormonal teen, which is cute, but chatty.

I did spend a bit of time pricing jewelry my sister donated to the MTOL table. We did sell some of it, so hooray for her! All donations help! And I get to be with friends.

Canova’s stuff is among this fine collection.

Luckily there are plants to enjoy, including this beautiful “mother of millions” in bloom. I never had one do that! Not bad for an invasive.

Here you can see the leaves with little babies on them.

And I wandered out to the side of the highway and found things for iNaturalist. That’s double volunteering!

Just wait. I’ll have more renovation pictures up. Volunteer time is almost over.