projects – The Hermits' Rest

Fancy Birding

When I got home from Blanco, my “birding station” was just about finished, other than some painting.

The good news is that the siding is close to the right color before painting.

It has a cute little metal roof and gets lovely morning sun this time of year, which is good because it’s been close to freezing the last couple of nights. The siding keeps the cold wind off my legs while the sun warms my top half.

My chair is in there. I ordered a little stool and side table for my coffee, notebook, and binoculars.

Next I need to measure the openings so I can order bamboo blinds to block the sun in summer and when sunset is trying to blast my eyes.

So far it hasn’t disturbed the wildlife. This beautiful moth visited yesterday.

I also enjoyed visits from a Viceroy and Bewick’s Wren.

Today’s visitor was larger. She was very curious about what the heck I was doing.

I’m looking forward to enjoying the winter sparrows and wrens from my station, especially once it’s a little warmer. Harris’s Sparrows arrived today, so the gang’s all here!

Outdoor Projects Moving Forward

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Exciting stuff, huh.

Yes! I Can Have Fun!

Yes, there was fun to be had on this chilly, blustery day. Did I say chilly? Well, the high didn’t get above 70°F, which is welcome. However, the wind made it feel colder, prompting a friend to ask if it was too soon to ask for summer back. Um, yes, I’m afraid it is. Tomorrow will be fairly cold, so I’m hoping the wind will die down.

As for fun today, discovering the horses in the driveway again wasn’t part of it. I had to brave the gales to go shut the main gate, all the while wondering how in the HECK the gate got open, since I strongly remember fastening it. No photos. They looked just like last time.

Verifiable fun occurred during my birding time, when I plopped my chair on my unfinished birding station and watched a parade of geese, ducks, and cranes fly over, followed by a cat creeping to the pond and making the Kingfisher and Great Blue Heron upset. (Kingfisher seems to have moved in for a while).

Plus, I finally saw some migrating Monarchs. None of my better flowers are blooming, so I’m not seeing as many as Austin friends are. I hope the wind didn’t mess them up.

I also had fun at work, because I like both projects I’m working on, one writing and one helping folks. I enjoy the conversation.

The real fun, though, came when I opened the huge collection of acrylic markers I just bought. A whole new world of things I can doodle on has opened up, along with the possibility of ruining many things. So far I put flowers on a pair of glasses that needed some rejuvenation. They look better than I feared, thought not “fine art.”

This tones down the silver in the frames.

I sat there wondering if I could decorate my ugly plastic headband. Yes, I could. It ended up looking nice with my blue hair.

I also put identification in a subtle silver on my new binoculars and their bag, hoping not to have these wander away.

The decorations were fun to do. I just have to resist the urge not to decorate every object in my home. I’ll try to just decorate rocks or something. Many people paint rocks.

My final fun was crocheting away while watching Elspeth so far this season. I will next watch Matlock. I like shows with quirky older protagonists. I feel okay not boycotting CBS, since Colbert was on Elspeth. So there.

Speaking of crochet, I finally have my temperature blanket through September. I look forward to months with more green and yellow…maybe even blue?

More thoughts on why I’m encouraged will be shared tomorrow. Ooh, passive voice! Reminds me to go finish reading The Language Puzzle, my current book.

You can see I have a new horse book coming up!

New Job New Motivation

This is an interesting point in my life. Having time for myself for three months was really pleasant, once I got used to being retired. But I’m just as glad to have gone back to work for a while, because it’s opened my eyes to a few things.

Granted, I haven’t been in the new organization a week yet, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how positive everyone is, how helpful they are to each other, and how they all like what they’re doing (mostly). People act interested in each other as people, even contract workers. And they’re generous with their time and expertise. I’m having a great time collaborating with others in roles similar to mine.

Cheerful as a yellow Kingbird on a wire.

The company has many goals and values that I agree with, like diversity and inclusion, carbon neutrality, and having fun (the larger team couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they had playing kickball).

Gee, I hope the “new job glow” doesn’t wear out too quickly! It’s refreshing to not be looking over your shoulder for HR to escort you out of the building or to have no idea where your team is going or what’s next. I spent too many years in my previous two Austin tech cultures, both of which had an atmosphere of negativity that I was always trying to make the best of because I needed money. And all those mergers and acquisitions!

I often felt like I was going down rabbit holes.

That’s no longer an issue. I’m working now because I want to be helpful and I’m in a place that values transparency and honesty with customers and staff. I may be tired from drinking information from a fire hose right now, but I’m doing things I enjoy (other than mandatory compliance training). I feel useful, helpful, and appreciated. That’s motivating!

Porch before tile was installed. It’s just dry fit here.

And very soon I’ll have a porch I can work from. The floor is going down, though my son is tired of having to vacuum up dog hair before laying each tile. Dang dogs.

Coincidentally, Coincidences Are Everywhere

I’m worn out after six hours of meetings, wrangling with new computer peripherals, then a fun meeting later. I’m not used to so much sitting and headphone wearing. I’ve gotta get back in the groove of work!

Carlton says he’s had a hard day of barking anytime a vehicle approached.

I’ll just share a story of serendipity and coincidence from this morning. I’m capable of that. So, bright and early, my son and I drove in his darned nice 2001 work truck to our nearest real city, Temple. It has big box stores, so it’s a city.

We headed to Lowe’s to look for some tile to make a border around our screened porch floor, since the leftover travertine from the inside of the house didn’t quite cover it. The quest failed. The big box store had ZERO floor tile that wasn’t porcelain. What the heck? We wanted something natural.

We left there and made the convoluted u-turn required to get back to the pitiful Temple Mall, where there’s a fairly new Floor and Decor store. We figured with “floor” in the name, they’d have more variety. And they did! I’d forgotten how much I love looking at wall tile, but I steeled myself to only look at flooring.

We did, indeed, locate natural stone in a large size that my son could cut to the required size. As I was dwelling on the color of the stone, I turned my eyes to the left. Wow, what I saw looked familiar. It was the exact travertine in the exact shapes we already were using.

What a coincidence! They had it.

But it was more than a coincidence. I realized that the stone was in the same spot in the store displayed exactly the same way it was in 2014, when our contractor and I picked the flooring. The store in Austin had the same layout!

Then we got the stuff to lay the tile and headed to checkout. The clerk asked if we had a phone number on file. I didn’t think so, but gave her Lee’s number. She said, yes, it was there all right, under Ruben Construction? I said sure, as we both laughed as we realized the last thing I’d bought there was that same tile!

What a coincidence. That certainly made the morning fun.

I got home an hour before my Pacific Time work started, too. Not bad but it made for a long (but good) day.

And now I sleep! I’ll be more pithy tomorrow, perhaps.

Best Last First Day on a Job Possible

Today I started what I hope will be my last full-time job ever (I did say that about my previous job that ended so oddly). Today was so encouraging that I keep wanting to tell someone, but I’ve already told my whole family, so it’s your turn, reader-folk. My new job started off splendidly.

Even the civilized 11am start time made me happy. No more 7am meetings for me! Pacific Time is nice. I’ll occasionally have a rather late meeting, but I’ll probably work 9:30-5:30, which is very nice. I’ll be able to have morning time to do things that require concentration. Great.

I met two coworkers today, and I enjoyed their positive attitudes, their eagerness to get my input, and their openness. The company seems to have a very open and honest culture. I’ll even know what products they’re making! I think we can get good things done and end up with productive and organized teams and projects. I’m stoked. (I love this initial part of any job where it’s all possibilities and few roadblocks.)

The company culture is refreshing and positive. They will even let me participate in their Employee Resource Groups. I’ll enjoy making contributions in this new place for the next few months! Let’s see what tomorrow brings when I start going to meetings. And when my laptop arrives so I can use my new email address and access the SharePoint site. Whee!

Oh how I’ve missed a work laptop. photo from Pexels.

Other good news? Look at these precious babies! They’re growing! Soon we can shut the porch door!

And my son made good progress laying out the floor on the screened porch using what was leftover from building our house. I’m glad we kept it safe all this time! We don’t have quite enough for the whole floor, so tomorrow we’re going to pick out a border tile. I hope we can find something that goes well with this natural stone that’s also on sale.

We’ll see. Being so optimistic feels good but weird!

I hope something positive happened to you today. We all need it.

Random Goodness – It’s Great!

I didn’t write anything yesterday, because I couldn’t think of a great theme or deep content, but this morning I realized that having a day that was just good and full of pleasant interactions was worth writing about.

I also did my nails tie dye. Oh happy day.

I guess there was one vaguely exciting thing that happened. We got a new gate opening mechanism on our front gate, because Lee was unhappy with how the previous one kept coming out of adjustment. The new one is really cool, though, and is made from a horseshoe and some chain. Once the welding machine gets some oxygen, it will even have something that helps it auto-close.

This is a lot easier to use, and quieter.

The excitement came when a welding spark ignited the long grass by the gate (mowing has been delayed by rains and husbandly illness). I saw it and went to get the conveniently long hose over to it, but in a fit of incompetence, it took me three tries to get there. First I had to go back and find a hard surface to turn the spray attachment on (it’s old and stuff), then there was a hose kink, and finally, I realized the hose actually wasn’t on. But, I did get there faster than the other hose, so I got to put it out. Now we have a nicely edged spot which will come back all green and pretty.

I enjoyed the new porch a lot, and was impressed at the good job that’s been done preparing my birding station for concrete. It’s going to be so cute, and we even have a little auto-waterer to turn into a bird bath out there!

It’s got plastic and rebar, ready for concrete.

The rest of yesterday was very pleasant. I got some work done on my temperature blanket, which has been delayed due to the package getting lost in the mail. The replacement arrived, and I’m up to the middle of May. Also pleasant was a nice visit from our friends Mike and Martha. We went swimming and then Martha made some spaghetti for dinner. Our weekly dinners have fallen by the wayside, and we need to pick it back up and try to drag Anita over (I haven’t heard from her except on Facebook since April! She’s a hard worker).

I can’t resist a purple flower, even if it is extra prolific Ruellia.

It rained over an inch last night, which made us happy. The front pond/tank is almost back to full capacity, and if we’re lucky, it will rain more this week. Now, the rain put the next “exciting” event in jeopardy, the pouring of the concrete. Nonetheless, it cleared up enough this morning for the big truck to show up and start pouring. Cleverly, it pulled into the RV parking space and could dispense concrete out that way.

I guess the highlight of the rest of the day will be watching cement dry. That’s okay with me. I’m enjoying every moment of not working and trying to savor the small things in life, like watching the horses and looking for bugs.

Typical arrangement. Everyone clustered but Apache, who’s on lookout.

Last night, Mike and I talked a bit about our Buddhism practice and whether we were doing a lot of living in the moment. We agreed we are doing better than we once did. That’s why they call it practice, I guess! In any case, I’m pretty content right now if I just focus on home and friends.

New and Exciting Things around Here

Things are happening over here at the Hermits’ Rest! It’s our turn to have some construction projects completed. The first one is a beautiful screened porch that Lee had really wanted for a long time. Our recent mosquito invasion has convinced me it’s a good idea, too!

The porch is an extension of the “outdoor room” that was part of the original floor plan of our house. It was open on one side, with doors leading out from the family room and my office and windows on the outside wall. There is even an outdoor fireplace! Sounds great, right?

I assure you it rarely looked like this.

It turned out that there were a couple of problems. First, the opening caught the north wind, which blew dog hair, leaves, June bugs, and other debris inside to be trapped in a vortex of ugliness. Also, wasps and Barn Swallows loved the sheltered areas for nesting. They like them a LOT. This nest on the back door wasn’t there last week.

We will have to leave the door open until this set of babies fledges, so no mosquito-free joy for a few weeks.

Note we have a dog door for the canine family members. They’ll have to suffer with TWO dog doors to get out.

George and his crew did a great job on the porch. It looks like it’s always been part of the house!

I was happy to see they finished the inside with Hardie plank, like the outside and they put foam insulation in cracks where the walls meet the stone. It’s like we added another living area!

We have some furniture to get and we will put a large fan in the ceiling. That will help where the rock wall is. Lee plans to bring in his spare anti-gravity chair, because he dreams of sleeping outdoors. I want a desk or table to work from home at, one that isn’t too big.

But first, we want to put a floor in there, which will be easier to sweep than the concrete. We happen to have a pallet of the travertine flooring we used in the downstairs of the house. It’s a challenge to install but looks great.

An interesting development right now is that the black willow seeds are flying around and getting on the screen. Luckily we can get them off and this season only lasts a while.

I love how the slats make shade even in late afternoon. Added benefit.

Enjoy some construction photos.

But that’s not all, folks! Another project Lee wanted to embark on was capturing water from our roofs. He and Chris decided to collect water from our garage first. The start for that project is to build a concrete pad behind the garage apartment where Lee’s brother lives. They will move the air conditioner onto the pad, and put a big old water tank on the other side between the door and window (I think; it’s not my project).

From what I can tell, they will have leftover concrete, so they decided to make another concrete pad for me to put my birding station on. They want to make me a bird blind, but I think that will be later. Lee says he’s getting a special seat to put there. We will see!

I believe this to be the frame for my little pad. This is not its ultimate location.

Oh. And I accepted the job offer. Goddess protect me.

Home Improvement Again

We haven’t been able to do much fixing up around here lately, but the construction team made time for us to start an upgrade. We’re fulfilling Lee’s dream of turning an awkward space in our house into a screened porch.

The little “outdoor room” on the other side of the family room has its own fireplace, and seemed like it would be a great place to hang out. Little did we know that the prevailing winds would create a vortex that sent every piece of debris into the narrow space. And when you have an Alfred, that means piles and piles of dog hair. Add in grass clippings, bird poop from the many Barn Swallow nests, and dust…well it was always awful except about a week after its quarterly cleaning.

My hope is that by screening in the room, we will get breezes but not so much hair. And the birds will have plenty of other nesting spots (they have the entire front and back porches to duel with House Sparrows over).

After emptying the game equipment and power washing the space, the guys got it all framed in today. They did something special with where the wood meets the concrete to prevent rot, but I’m not sure what.

It’s all planned out how it’s going to blend in with the trim and siding on the rest of the house, so it will look like the porch was always there.

I hope we can get the fireplace set up for cool evenings. In any case, the mosquito barrier will be nice!

A Beautiful Day for a Long Nap

This was such a pretty day. It started out cool and barely got to 70°F. I had hoped to spend most of the day outdoors, and I got a good start in the morning by taking a long walk, then guarding two escaped calves until the owner could move them back inside. Only one truck was going fast enough to hurt them but I slowed it down. They’re valuable livestock!

Then I spent time with the chickens trying to figure out why bees are all over their food. I still don’t know, but Clint assures me they are delicious. Extra protein!

Bonus bee, rooster and turkey video. Hear the buzz and gobbles.

Back at the house, I tried to finish January on the temperature blanket but got sleepy, which is odd, because I slept great last night. I went upstairs and collapsed into a deep sleep that I had a hard time waking up from. It was a weird feeling. I thought I was sick or something but maybe I should have eaten more.

I made myself get up and go outside once I could move around. I took some photos with the telephoto lens but haven’t downloaded them yet. It wasn’t such a great bird day anyway.

I saw a formation of planes, three white, three black. They went north then came back.

I’d intended to ride Apache but was feeling lightheaded so I just exercised him. I’m sure he’s thrilled. Tomorrow he has no choice.

I did get January all done. It needs blocking, but does look like a calendar! I like the border. It’s perky.