projects – Page 3 – The Hermits' Rest

Better Days Do Come

Sometimes when you have a long string of anxious and worried days, it’s nice to have one that builds you up. I hate it when I’m dealing with annoying physical symptoms and I’ve done all I can to get my equilibrium back, but the truth is sometimes I just have to wait it out. Today helped!

I got to enjoy what passes for fall color in College Station Today.

Penney woke me up by wigging and licking like crazy for about an hour, so I got up, looked at the damp day, and did my nails with a set I’d looked forward to using, which looked like a brocade cloth with big flowers on it. It didn’t go on really great, but it perked right up when I added some gaudy jewels I had hanging around. Now the whole thing looks over the top, but it cheers me up.

After talking to the chickens, I headed over to the place I got them, Bird and Bee Farm, where our Master Naturalist wildscape project is located. I rarely have time on their special days to get out there, so I was glad I had a while to drop by.

I’d intended to take photos of all the butterflies, but it was still too damp in late morning for them to be out. Even the bees were still napping.

My friend Debi and I looked at all the flowers and found lots of caterpillars and a cat.

All these black ones came up as salt marsh moths

It was so pleasant just wandering around and seeing what is still hanging around this time of year. The dew was so heavy that it made for fine photo ops. It’s nice to photograph non-wildflowers like roses and zinnias occasionally

I hung out with birds a bit, and heard a new wren on Merlin, a sedge wren. I wish I’d seen it because it sure looks cute in its photo online. Instead, here are turkeys.

After talking a while with other Master Naturalists, I had to leave. I hope Patsy notices I put my nails in the blog for her.

The reason I had to leave was that I had my second watercolor class at Brazos Watercolor Retreats in College Station. We learned to paint trees with sunlight pouring through them. There were lots of new techniques to learn, like making white space by putting some rubbery stuff on the paper before painting. I also learned to make the sun rays.

I didn’t do a great job on the tree part, but I know what I’d do differently if I tried again. For a first try, I’m fine with my finished product. Maybe I should get some paints, brushes, and paper. It’s fun to see how the colors come out.

I even made it home in time to feed the horses before it was too dark, which makes it a lot easier to give Apache his medicine. They have a new bale of hay, and judging from the holes in the wet ground, they had a good time running around after they escaped while the tractor was going in. Those little dickenses.

So, yay, today has been fine enough that I’m handling learning about a few deaths in my circle pretty well. I have plenty of energy to send out love to all the families and friends, which feels really good.

Hug a loved one.

My Favorite Album(s)

What’s your all-time favorite album?

How could a music lover pick only one album as a favorite? But I have a couple. They are all kind of old. But so am I.

Quadrophenia by the Who. Pete Townshend’s finest work. I could listen to it on repeat, though I’ve practically memorized it, so I don’t have to. There’s more than one Who/Townshend album in my top ten! 1973

The River by Bruce Springsteen. I love every song on this gorgeous work of art. If you’ve never heard the song, “Drive All Night,” you should. 1980

Trio, by Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt. If you read my music blog a couple of days ago, you know how much I like harmonies. These three women blend perfectly and the arrangements are haunting. 1987

The Wind, by Warren Zevon. It’s just a gorgeous farewell to life by one of the greatest songwriters ever. “Keep Me in Your Heart,” oh my gosh. I miss this man. His biography by his wife was great, by the way. 2003

Hey, I had a “me” day today and took a watercolor class. I’d never painted with watercolors before. The technique we learned was a bit scary at first, but by gosh I ended up creating some things that looked like roses, which was the goal.

I tried to do a different flower, so I worked on a buffalo bur. The flowers look cool, but not the leaves. I should have used a different technique. If I ever buy paints, I’ll try again.

Look, I am not trained in art. Or not since childhood anyway.

It was worth a drive to College Station on a game day. Luckily we were on the far outskirts of town.

Please think of our family. It’s a challenging time.

I also found a new-to-me plant along the pond where the class was. Blue waterleaf *Hydrolea ovata*

Is There an Ideal Home?

What does your ideal home look like?

Today’s prompt is something I think about often. I’ve designed a few homes and liked each, but none are my dream home. The Hermits’ Rest ranch house has a floor plan I like, but things have happened to make it less than ideal. That’s fine. Life happens!

When I envision an ideal home, I quickly realize the setting is more important to me than the house. Ideally I would have:

Enough acreage that I can’t see neighbors who aren’t family
Woods, with paths
Pasture for horses and hay
A lake where one can swim, fish, kayak, and look at birds
Barn with stalls, tack room, and hay area
Horses and donkeys (reasonable number, but in Ideal World I have a helper who gets to ride with me)
Indoor horse arena
Meadow or prairie area, with paths,
A creek going into or leading from the lake
Treehouse/bird blind

The house will feature much wood and iron. There are windows with views of the lake, the woods, and if possible, the horses, but they may be a little ways down the road.

Vaguely like this Georgia house from One Kindesign

Porches and decks to hang out on and enjoy the view are a must. There will be a little path leading to a guest house and swimming pool.

By the way, the lake will NOT feature poopy cow butts

In the house I can have all the colors and patterns I want. There will be much Jacobean tree of life prints on the furniture and walls. China, pottery, paintings, embroideries, and glassware will be wherever I want it. My beautiful dining room table and chairs will look great in the cheerful dining room.

That’s the idea! (From *Architectural Digest*)

I will be able to see to read in any of the many comfortable but not ugly seating areas. I’d have plants if I weren’t so bad with them.

My office will have Native Anerican rugs, pottery, and baskets by people I know it at least know of. I will display my silver there, along with paintings of horses and canyons and mesas. There will be tall ceilings to hold all my bookshelves, with those ladder things to climb to get books.

I could hide the shelves among Jacobean tapestries.

And if you know me, I won’t have a white kitchen and there may well be cherry cabinets. I like cherry and don’t care if it’s fashionable. I will have an induction range and cast iron cookware. If I can’t lift it anymore I’ll hire a cook.

My goodness. These things are $400 now. I’ll stick with my black 1986 one.

Bathrooms? Cheerful. Colorful. Functional. Attached to a huge closet no one will make fun of me for, with much shoe storage and a jewelry vault or giant storage thing.

I have no bathroom examples, but look, more English florals. My happy place, too. From the *Architectural Digest* article, “Happy Place” with photographs by Max Burkhalter. September 2023, pp. 89-101

I’ll need a yarn room or outbuilding. Then I can sew, weave, and quilt. People can hang out with me there. Yes, that will be great.

I enjoyed imagining this impossible house. It’s really impossible because I want it not too big and in a pleasant climate. Ha ha.

No, there’s no ideal home. Let’s aim for comfy.

Rainy Day Memories

We are still going through boxes from my old house. Lee has been bringing up things from deeper and deeper in the past. For example, he brought in a box I instantly recognized. It was a shoebox covered in contact paper that looked like wood.

I used to love woodgrain contact paper. I covered a dorm fridge and a wall telephone in it while in college.

The box contained my high school diaries, 1972-1975. See why it’s no surprise I like to write blog posts? I’ve always loved journaling. There have been very few years of my life that didn’t have journals, diaries, or some record.

Deep stuff in here (actually, remarkably little deep stuff and remarkably many boring details of what happened in my classes)

I remember writing these diaries and I remember that everyone I knew was aware that I did. What I didn’t remember until I opened the later diaries was that I wrote them in Spanish. As I posted on Facebook, not only did I protect my family from reading it, but also future me.

From my reading of the exciting year of 1974, I came to a couple of conclusions about teen Suna. One, she was driven by hormones. I sure read a lot of details about what various young dudes said and did. They apparently spent more time asking each other who they liked than actually dating, however. I was insanely jealous of two girls my “dream date” seemed interested in. On the other hand, I had plenty of hormones left over for numerous high school band members.

In addition to my secondary theme of what Anita and I bought at the mall, I did something that I’m pretty sure I’m still doing today. I wrote things down partially to convince myself that they were true. Every week it was either “Dream Date is NOT for me,” or “I feel all gooey when I look at Dream Date.” I think I tried very hard to convince myself that person wasn’t important at all to me, but I was lying. I mean, shoot, that guy is STILL someone I am dazzled by even though we broke up in 1985 (all my fault).

Just reading the stuff I wrote gives me an impression of myself that isn’t very good. I don’t think I’d have liked me very much. We were all pretty mean to each other, we had horrible nicknames for teachers and fellow students, and we were overly cliquish. I’m glad I’ve spent the last 50 or so years trying to be less of an asshole, even though I still fail at times.

Any Other Memories, Suna?

Yes, I have memories that are less harsh on myself that showed up in these boxes. There were a lot of old photos that somehow missed my anal-retentive storage organization system. I was charmed to find photos of the playhouse my dad and maternal grandfather made for me and my brother when we were little. Those two mathematical geniuses decided to build it with no right angles, anywhere. Oh my gosh they had fun with their protractors and saws. We loved that thing.

The photo of Dad and Pappy working on it is a treasure. I barely remember my grandfather, because he died soon after this,

The playhouse eventually became Dad’s tool shed after he built us a “treehouse” that we used as older kids. The playhouse still stands.

Another creation of my dad’s that I found pictures of the fishpond. He built this himself of his own design. The photos below were right after he finished. Later he added a pump and turned poor Saint Francis into a fountain. Water came out of the bird’s nest he held (Dad also thought it was Saint Frances for many years – hey, the saint had long hair and wore a dress, plus Dad had a sister named Frances). Lucky for Francis, dad later found a cool rock to be the waterfall, and the birdbath went back to its original purpose.

That’s water hyacinth in there, before we realized it was invasive.

That pond was a real thing of beauty and a highlight of our home. We had huge goldfish and catfish Mom had fished out of Newnan’s Lake as babies. Mom’s favorite story was that a little boy came to visit, wandered behind the house and came running up to his dad, saying, “Good God, Daddy, they gots a LAKE in their back yard!”

The back of the house. Notice the pots and pans on the patio. Mom set the leftovers out for Wendy Pace, the neighbor springer spaniel.

On that note, I’ll just share some photos that gave me warm fuzzy feelings. First, it’s no surprise that I like horses. I unpacked my china horses and giant plastic draft horse and this photo of me embarrassing my dad and kids.

And we can’t forget my first dog, Gwynneth. I got her because that’s the kind of dog I thought would fit our family best. That dog sure barked a lot, but we did love her for 15 years. Even when she was blind!

The Good, the Bad, and the Panic Attacks

Sometimes my days seem schizophrenic. There are so many highs and lows that it makes my head spin. More accurately, I end up with a full-blown anxiety attack, complete with shaking limbs (that make me trip over a dog then drop and break a pretty bowl) and chest pains. Nota bene: I know it’s not my heart, no need to tell me to go to the ER.

See, I’m also prickly and can get annoyed for no good reason, like imaginary unsolicited advice. Let’s back up.

I went to work at the Red House, since I had a training to do and didn’t want to drop the meeting suddenly. That was fine, though I left my mouse at home. Does anyone actually LIKE trackpads? I’m all ready for the training. Suddenly I hear chainsaws.

There’s my kid and his coworker. They inform me they’re going to cut down the dead and dying trees in the yard. These are HUGE trees. I was dubious. But they did get a lot done, plus got limbs away from the roof.

All was well, though, since no one could hear the cutting and thudding but me. I made the mistake of looking outside and seeing the two young men on top of the house. I was scared for them and got sorta nervous. It looked pretty dangerous. I mean, they aren’t arborists, just guys willing to do what they’re asked to do. They also admitted to being scared. That’s a healthy admission, I think. As far as I know, they survived. They have good sense!

I also unpacked a box of glassware from the Austin house. I do dislike doing that, but it was nice to see my Starbucks mugs and favorite green glasses. Lucky renters will get to use them.

Things continued to go downhill as I raced home to get ready for my horse lessons. It was extra hot and humid, which didn’t help. The horses were hiding, because they don’t like welding, which was going on in their pens. (Too bad, I’m very happy the pens are getting worked on and think they look great.)

I was too busy to take pictures, so enjoy dogs playing with cattle.

I sorta got Drew cleaned up, then trudged back for Apache, who was sweaty as me. I was deeply involved in trying to de-sweat and de-mud him when our welding friend called out to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, which is weird, because I knew he was there! It turns out Mabel had braved the welding area and walked out. I had exactly zero minutes for chasing after her, so I probably looked like a nasty old woman running around cursing.

Mabel responded to food, of course, but Apache never did get groomed. All this prelude leads to this: I had a great lesson on each horse, learned a few things, and really felt calm and together, like I’m getting a clue. Well, when Drew started to toss me around because mares were running up, I yelled at Tarrin that I was going to die. But I didn’t. She got me and Drew back on track. He actually settled down after being frisky because the weather changed.

Im so grateful for Tarrin’s help, and I think the horses are, too. Apache hates to leave her training area! And we get to laugh at cantering cows and thank the weather for cooling down the moment my lesson started. It’s good stuff, the horse training.

By the time we got home, Drew had managed to kick everything around in the trailer and break his trailer tie. That allowed him to mostly exit ungracefully without me unlatching him. That got me all worried he was hurt. That guy! But he’s no longer the ranch baby, because Sully had her baby today, a little filly! I can’t wait to see her.

Sara shared this cuteness. Sully gave birth at her owner’s place.

By the time I finally got the horses fed, I was starving, which probably led to some of the shaking. I just feel like I was not my best self much of the day, but at work and with the horses I was great. Eh, that’s probably normal.

Now to settle that chest pain down. I’ll pet Carlton. That will help.

The Red House Goes Live

I took the plunge and listed our vacation rental on AirBnB or however you spell that. It will be interesting to see if anyone at all actually rents a house for a “vacation” here.

Here’s the link, if you know anyone dying to come over here.

Enjoy the new exterior photos I took today, in the meantime.

Sometimes It’s So Weird You Have to Laugh

Admittedly, I am not laughing right now, but I’m sure I’ll be able to at some point. I woke up this morning with the positive attitude that all would be well. I had a technician scheduled to come work on my router, I’d be able to finish my work project, and things would be just fine.

In the long run, of course, everything WILL be just fine. It’s just going to take a lot longer to get there than I would have imagined. It’s funny, I guess, with some perspective. Here I go with my tale of weirdness.

Other good news is that I did finish another row in the temperature blanket. It looks like a Klimt

I got numerous texts today about the technician arriving, but I never saw him. Finally I got a call from the technician guy (who is really nice) asking me if he was at the right address. Hmm.

It turns out he was at the Red House. I had signed into THAT account on AT&T but it didn’t have the address anywhere, so I had no idea. And of course, he couldn’t come to the ranch, since he was assigned to go to the Red House…

…and it turns out I needed him to be there, since the phone or cable or whatever line it was had been obliterated in the ice storm. Why didn’t I know? Because the router there had never been set up. Why? Because there was no phone outlet. So, I needed to get that all taken care of anyway.

As I tried to work and failed miserably, the technician called back. He needed to get in the house, since whoever had built the back porch had covered up the phone wire access point.

So, I zipped with much haste over to the Red House. Hooray, I thought to myself, I brought the correct key! He could get in! And he did. Brr, it was chilly in there. And hey, it was also dark.

It was chilly and dark because there was no dang power. What the heck? The house had power last week, so that wasn’t caused by the ice storm! People had stayed there and Anita had cleaned up after them. But, no power today. Great. I called Lee and asked him to look into it, but he was quite busy paying our scary tax bill. He says the bill is paid!

And the pool house and hen house are still here.

So, we went on in to figure out where to put the modem. We found the right spot in the dining area and drills started drilling away. The technician asked me to bring him the modem. Um, the modem…it isn’t there? GREAT, another bump in the road!

So, I called Anita, since I’d asked her to plug it in for our first guests, but she’d not been able to find a phone outlet. That’s because they’d all been removed in the renovation. We didn’t think we’d need it…

I asked Anita where the modem was. She had taken it home! Oh. Well, I needed it. Luckily she had a little time and was able to run over with the box, and they could at least get everything set up. I’m going to be super optimistic and assume it will work when the power is turned on.

Meanwhile, I still needed to get my original issue addressed, didn’t I? I spent another hour or so talking to AT&T customer support, once I shouted enough at the automated system that they gave me a person. The system kept insisting I didn’t know my special secret PIN, but I did! The human being I got was really helpful, and had to be patient with the fact that he was talking to me, Lee, and Anita as we tried to first figure out what account the ranch is on, and what the equipment was.

Eventually, it was officially decided that the router didn’t work, but the rest of the equipment was okay. They almost made me an appointment to come tomorrow to fix things…when the customer supporter said oh, first they needed to be sure that the towers were working. ACK!

No one has called. Dang. I leave to go camping Thursday. We sorta need a router. I think I’m using a lot of my phone’s allotment of data trying to work via the phone hotspot.

Sure, it’s not all bad. Anita and I were able to put up the dining room curtains, which I neglected to photograph, and we did a few touch ups. We discovered the shower curtain doesn’t actually stay up, so we will need to get that fixed before the next paying guests show up. At least it shouldn’t be too hard.

One more good thing! The RV office area is now complete and lovely. The keyboard stand is custom and blends nicely with the decor.

I’m just going to stop here. I’m sort of shaking just writing it all down. I’ve just been laying low and not doing anything that might cause me to fall, break something, or piss anyone off. I’m not getting in the hot tub, so I won’t have a water accident, and I’m certainly not going into the woods where there are snakes. Did I ride horses? No way. I carefully exercised them. If I’m just patient, maybe the time will pass safely.

Deep breaths, Suna. We all have our periods of challenges, and sometimes they just keep building on each other until it’s sort of funny.

Ha ha, time for a glass of wine.

Technology Is My Friend

I’m getting tired of toting two laptops wherever I go. It really makes my computer backpack heavy! And it seems silly to bring my personal laptop everywhere I go, when all I really want to do is blog, check email in case there’s a message from a human on it, read social media, and search for stuff. I can do all that on the phone.

The sky was absolutely glorious this morning. Worth waking up to!

I just solved that problem by finally getting a new keyboard that will attach to either my laptop OR my phone. As a matter of fact, I’m blogging on it now! That pleases me very much, because, as an old person, I type way faster than I can use a phone for entering text. I just haven’t gotten the hang of using my thumbs, or whatever it is the quick people do.

The latest new flower is the silverleaf horse nettle, which will bloom all summer long.

I got a little Logitech keyboard K585. It lets you switch between a laptop and a phone with relative ease (once you figure out how to set it up). The computer was easy, once I realized I had to turn the keyboard off and on again to connect and figured out that my USB unifying receiver didn’t like to share.

Look at it, editing this post right here. This shows how grungy my trackpad is.

The phone was harder, because even though I pressed the button to set up the second device and turned Bluetooth on, there were no instructions for entering the magical pairing number on the keyboard. I kept entering the numbers and nothing happened. About the fifth time, I just pressed the Enter key when I was finished, and sure enough, it worked. I wished the instructions had SAID to press Enter.

Now I’m a happy keyboarder. I like blogging on the phone, because I can upload photos straight from my camera images rather than putting them in the media library from the phone and then accessing them on the laptop.

My computer bag will be much lighter tonight when I go to Round Rock so I can work at Dell HQ tomorrow. I’ll get to meet some of my coworkers for the first time, AND when I’m done with work, I can pick up my much-needed new glasses. That will save me a separate three-hour trip. I’m a winner all around.

The only problem will be that I can’t put Apache away for the daylight hours tomorrow, which I’m trying to do to help his inflammation. Fingers crossed I can get someone both willing and able to do it for me. By the way, he is displeased. I thought it was really sweet of Drew to hang out with him when I first put Apache in there after his morning exercise.

Very few seconds after this scene of companionship the tussling began. In the photos it looks like Apache is going after Drew, but in reality, Drew started after Apache’s sore back. I realize the medication has honey in it, but I don’t think it’s actually tasty, due to other ingredients. But, Droodles will be Droodles!

Excellent views of Apache’s teeth and swollen lymph nodes.

Thanks for all the good thoughts headed toward my family. We appreciate it very much. There’s always something going on around here.

PS: If you read the blog on WordPress or the Web, you’ll notice I took the ads off. I was making a small amount of money from them, but I got reports that icky phishing and scammy kinds of ads were appearing, so I decided to be kind to my readers and dump that stuff. You’re welcome. Let me know if there are any other oddities popping up, or if the ads persist.

Everyone Is Busy

You hear that a lot, right? That people fill their lives with too much stuff, make their kids too busy, etc. true, I like to be doing things and am no good at just sitting. But I declare that some of the things that occupy my time aren’t making me busy.

All the knitting and crocheting I do calms and soothes me. I’m not busy.

I would guess that most of us have ways of looking busy that actually relax us. Some take us away from our numerous tasks and duties. You know, like reading. Dang, I read a lot of magazines. They don’t make me think for overly long stretches, and there are pretty photos.

I’m glad not all magazines have disappeared. And I’m sorry I used to think this was a yucky magazine, but it’s fascinating and full of turquoise and respectful stories about Western people.

Anyway, I just wanted to say it’s okay to fill your like with things you enjoy, even if it makes you seem too busy. Your only too busy if what you’re doing makes you upset or exhausted.

Speaking of busy, for the FIRST TIME EVER all 8 chickens laid an egg today. This didn’t even happen when they were young!

Yes, everyone is busy. My goal is to be an enriching kind of busy, surrounded by pastimes I love, beauty, and interesting people. This will keep me young and vital. I hope.

We keep busy by eating. And yes, Suna now feeds our bull buddy when we eat.

Too Windy

I had many outdoor plans today but ruled many of them out due to a pounding wind from the south. Activities like cleaning up trash and shoveling horse poop were curtailed pretty quickly. I did manage to get some square bales of hay out to the horses with minimal bits of hay going into my eyes.

Once I put the bales in, each horse seemed certain that the next horse over had a better selection, so they ended up moving in circles just like a merry-go-round. Such comic relief.

Soon they got a new round bale, which calmed them down. Maybe having enough hay will keep them out of the dang cockleburs. Fiona apparently slept in them, because I got 20+ off her right side and there are still some left. I wore out her patience.

The rest of the day included highlights such as kitchen cleaning and re-organizing my nail polish strips. Whee.

I watched US football playoffs and worked on the last border of the rug project. I’m growing quite fond of the back side of the rug!

At least I got to see friends at dinner and laugh a lot. Our conversations veer off into strange territory sometimes! I’ll be more interesting tomorrow, perhaps. There will, at least, be horse riding if the wind stops. It might have toppled me today—the gate nearly did so today!