My friend Pamela and I traveled to Corpus Christi today to go to a convention, because somehow we got elected delegates. It was such a pleasant drive! We went the back way, which was really pretty after all the recent rains. We stopped for lunch in LaGrange, where there was a new restaurant we happened upon.
Look at that spinach soufflé and squash! oh and some meat stuff.
The meal was delicious! I’m so glad I could find a local spot. We happened to meet some woman from there at the convention, and they said the place was brand new.
I was very happy to find our hotel, which is right on the beach but has a weird very steep driveway. Yet another construction site hotel. But where we are seems new and beautiful.
And you can see the Gulf of Mexico from our room, kind of.
We got a ride to the convention site, wandered around, and ended up meeting fascinating people who live part-time in our county! And they were with a musician I’d known from my past in the Austin area. We had a great conversation and ended up knowing many people in common. How random!
The new friends and an old one.
Next, a guy walked up to greet them. It was my former singing partner, Austin. Dang. He didn’t recognize me. I look different, especially with my crazy hair and weird glasses.
Trey Bone reunion. minus Bill.
It was great to see Austin and his wife Connie again after a good number of years. They were kind enough to give Pamela a ride to and from a “fun” event that ended up way too crowded for our taste.
It was at a place called Goldfish.
Pamela was pretty zonked after that excitement so we ordered Thai food delivered to our room. It was excellent! We were pleasantly surprised. Tomorrow’s an early day of caucuses and I don’t know what. I hope I have time to look at some birds and water.
Ooh. I almost forgot. We got new gutters today, in preparation for hooking up our rainwater collection system. The guys worked 14 hours! Lee was impressed.
Getting started. Last photo with nice red gutters. In progress extruding the gutter.
There are no finished photos because they finished after dark.
My day today started off with spending a good while just watching a pair of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds flitting around and hanging out.
Happy pair.
Usually if there are two males, they chase each other to defend their territory, but this male and female were just hanging out and maybe flirting. It was very calming to observe.
Bunnies were hard to distinguish from Lee’s mowing clumps.
The day (very long) ended with Kathleen presenting me with one of her diamond painting crafts. I knew she made them, but had never seen one before. I guessed (correctly) that she wasn’t surprising me with beautiful flowers, because she was suppressing a laugh as she came up to me, holding something behind her back. What was it? Well, she knows how much I like birds, so she tested my love of my avian friends by making me a bird I couldn’t like.
He’s watching me from the fireplace now.
I laughed so hard. It’s so nice and sparkly! It’s just the perfect gag gift! I love how we can poke fun at each other and enjoy stuff like this. We can all use a good laugh to keep us going.
Meanwhile, I did my nails all patriotic in preparation for a weekend trip. This polish looks like those rocket popsicles.
Festive!
I’ll try to write tomorrow. I’m stepping out of my comfort zone.
Today was pretty darned pleasant. I got some items on my to-do list done, and enjoyed a day of less bad news surrounding me. Woo hoo!
The knockout roses Lee bought that I thought were doomed are both blooming. One little joy!
I went with Lee and Chris to Lowe’s to pick up supplies for the pool house project behind our house. I remembered to ask them to get a new air conditioner for my she shed, which will certainly improve horse feeding this summer.
Progress is being made!
I also finally remembered to get an American flag to go by our front gate. I’d been intending to do it for quite some e, but I rarely go anywhere that would have one these days. I want to be clear that everyone on our property has hopes for a better future here, no matter the details of our beliefs.
When we got home I hurried to do barn chores, and the flag was up by the time I got finished! What a joy.
I met an interesting man who builds furniture mostly out of 2x4s at the checkout line at Lowe’s. I enjoyed looking at his creative ideas and techniques. He reminded me very much of the creative builders in my family!
After Lowe’s Lee and I went to the pet store and got some “rosy red minnows” to put in the horses’ water troughs. That’s another to-do item I kept forgetting to do. I didn’t remember to take any pictures before I put them in. Let’s hope enough of them survive to do mosquito and algae control.
Apache and Spice always are fascinated by fish. Let’s hope these hide under their cement blocks well.
We got canna lilies to plant near the pool, too. The variety name cracked me up. My mother’s first name was Canova. Close. No humans by that name are authorized in this property, but innocent sale bin plants are.
I did chuckle.
Plus, I gave my nails a rainbow manicure and finished May on the temperature blanket. April and May were fairly pleasant. June is rather red so far. Red is over 90°, wine is over 95° and hot pink is over 100°. I’m hoping for very little hot pink this summer.
Both these brought me joy.
I wish you little moments of joy and much peace. Thanks for reading.
If you’ve read my writing before, you’ve probably realized I’ve gotten more like the hermit in our ranch name as time goes on. I get pretty drained in crowds nowadays, even Master Naturalist meetings. (Yet I am going to a convention soon, which I may regret.)
I can always fly away like this guy.
However, one-on-one interactions lift my spirits so much! Today I had many opportunities for good conversation. I’m thankful to all!
I’m even grateful for this large bold jumping spider who entertained us this morning.
This morning I spent a good while talking about some complicated stuff with Kathleen over our morning coffee, but soon the topics veered off into what an odd little family dynamic we have over here at the compound. For example, we keep repaying each other similar amounts of money, so it’s just floating around in circles. Much laughter ensued. Penney also found it funny.
Next, Terry the farrier came to trim the horses and Fiona. We had good conversation with him, too. I enjoy learning his stories of his interesting life and his own odd happenings, like someone just giving him a Jeep. He also found a weird thing growing on Spice, near her tests. Our guess is that it’s a skin tag or little melanoma. I need to find someone knowledgeable to look at it.
It’s on the right.
After a nice, quiet afternoon of work, Terri from Master Naturalists came over to get a blog software refresher so she can help on the Master Naturalist blog. We are supposed to have a backup for all our roles. We fed the horses, looked at all the ponds and outbuildings, and yes, practiced blogging. I tried to explain our family arrangements here, and once again realized how weird it sounds when you say it out loud. I enjoyed her stories of living on a sailboat with young children, too.
I know I share a lot of egrets. But they are so beautiful.
It was a very pleasant time with no deadlines or big agenda. The whole day was like that. Very little negativity and much supportive interaction. I wish you similar days!
For the past week or two, I’ve been enjoying my friends in the order Odonata, the dragonflies and damselflies. They’ve been darting around the ponds and zipping around the driveway. I always look forward to the brightly colored pink, purple, orange, blue, and green shapes, especially when they hold still.
When they’re moving, it’s a blur.
Of course, even the less colorful ones are fun, since they tend to make up for it with interesting patterns.
Common whitetail, female. Plathemis lydia
I didn’t get any photos as pretty as the one yesterday, but I thought this backlit Roseate skimmer was artistic. These are gloriously pink in sunlight.
Orthemis ferruginea
What the heck, here are more pictures of yesterday’s Blue dasher.
Pachydiplax longipennis
I got to wondering how many different Odonata species we’ve observed here at the ranch. Luck is with me, because I have an iNaturalist project of all observations on our original property and the one next door. Turns out there are 24 species so far. Look at all the variety!
I know I’ve seen some of these more frequently than it appears. But those skimmers are hard to get sitting still. I’ll have to try with the good camera. It doesn’t help that dragonfly season is also mosquito season, which means I also don’t want to hold still very long. I do see many amber wings and Halloween pennants, but they are quite busy so not so many photos.
And no, I can’t tell one blue dancer from another. I do know powdered dancers. They hang around the swimming pool with me.
Powdered dancer from last April
I’d love to know what dragonflies and damselflies some of you see elsewhere. I’ll have to look up their ranges.
Today was good. One of my friends had asked our chat group if anyone had certain essential oils. I thought to myself, why, I have a considerable amount of essential oils. I could give them to her so she wouldn’t have to spend all the money to buy them. Then I realized I now only use one or two oils, so ten years’ worth of collecting was just sitting there. I decided to give it all away.
Free as a dragonfly! A blue dasher.
I could barely carry the bag full of oils in boxes, bags, etc. into the restaurant for lunch. I laughed as my friends descended on those bottles of oils like magpies spotting shiny objects. The one who needed the oils to tend to her llama went first, and she found all she needed.
I got joy out of everyone’s chatter and discussion of where and how they were going to use their aromatic treasures. It all went to someone, including the boxes, one of which was a humidor. One friend only took a box! I was just so pleased to know that this stuff I’d spent a lot of money on would get used by people who’d enjoy it. I’m so happy for them.
Later in the day, I gave the phone number we’d been using for our late lamented Air Bnb house to my son’s partner, who is about to lose their previous number. I’m so proud of myself for remembering to hold on to the number for just this kind of occurrence. My reward was hugs and smiles, which made my heart soar. All I want is to make life a little easier for them!
A different topic
This still relates to being nice, but in a different way. I finally got an equine dentist to come out and float our horses’ teeth. Kayli at Walking K Equine Dentistry is charming and enthusiastic. She’s also one strong cowgirl.
Working on Apache.
It’s always fun to watch the horses get worked on. They always feel better with sharp edges removed and irregularities smoothed out.
Dusty wanted to share a story with Kayli.
The best part is when they’re done and recovering from the sedation. It’s pure relaxation. I really enjoyed listening to Spice snoring as she recovered.
Snoozing Paints
I’m glad we found someone who lives nearby to do this work, since it needs to be done yearly and our previous dentist has had trouble with appointments (she’s still very good at the job). Mabel needs to be seen again in 6 months because she has a loose tooth. Or Spice. What a fine memory I have. Good thing Kathleen was with me to remember things and tell fun stories about cattle. We are an interesting team.
More dental work and one donkey.
I’m thinking that, since I hear often that I need to have fewer objects, I should keep my ears open in case someone else needs something I can pass on. It’s uplifting to think that my unused items could be just what someone else needs!
I know it’s blurry. But this water bug looks cool.
I don’t think I’m doing anything more boring than usual. However, the statistics on this blog are suddenly very low. I guess my bird stats were a dud. I’ll keep posting anyway. It’s good to have a few Boring Boomer Bloggers out there, and I certainly don’t do any marketing.
Since Facebook hides posts with links, maybe I should just start posting the whole blog there after I write it here for my email friends. I could get rich via monetization. Now, that’s delusional.
Hope you enjoy the only photo I took today. It’s a tiny skipper. Work will settle down in just a few weeks and I can have more of interest to write about.
Yesterday I worked on adding up how many bird species I observed here at the Hermits’ Rest last month. I was happy to have seen 126 different species as the migration season drew to a close. I was wondering if there was a seasonal pattern, because I intuited that the spring and autumn migration seasons would bring in more species.
Speaking of birds, I’m not sure if this sparrow nest addendum was on purpose.
I don’t remember exactly what I did, but somehow Excel asked me if I wanted an analysis of the data. Well, yes, I did, because data analysis using spreadsheets is not one of my skill sets. I had all kinds of questions that I’d like answered, like what were the most common species, which species have been here every month, etc.
Like, am I a bird?
Suddenly, BOOM. a new tab opened on the spreadsheet. It had all the answers. Something had analyzed my spreadsheet. Oh no, I found a use for AI! Damn! I couldn’t not look at the results. I really wanted to know.
Right on top, there was a summary of my ranch bird data:
The sheet is a month-by-species presence matrix: an X means a bird was recorded in that month. Coverage spans Dec-23 through May-26, with 2,804 total monthly presence marks. May-25 is the richest month (129 species); Jul-24 is the quietest (60 species). 18 species appear in every month, suggesting reliable year-round residents. 30 species appear in only one month, highlighting possible migrants, one-off observations, or rare sightings.
That’s all the stuff I wanted to know! To top it all off, there were tables and charts! Look at this.
I was wrong about the seasons. Winter, with all those sparrows, has the second most sightings, after what I expected…that spring gets the most.
This one is probably my favorite. I wonder, though, how we got so many species last June, when the previous June, July, and August were so low (and this June is starting off pretty slow). What I really think is that I need another couple of years of data to see these patterns better. Here’s another graph:
These are the 18 birds we see every month, with two that occur almost every month. I am not at all surprised at the species I see here. I wasn’t sure that Eastern Bluebirds were here every month. I don’t see them every day, but I guess they are here. Okay, one final fascinating thing.
These are supposedly the birds we’ve only seen once. That’s pretty interesting, but look! There are weird spellings on the birds, which I assure you are spelled correctly on the original spreadsheet. I probably shouldn’t have asked for a red border. I wonder what a Swalver is? And I think those last two are both Virginia Rails. But it appears only once on my list. I went too far.
What are my conclusions? In summary, AI is helpful upon occasion, but AI always does weird stuff to the data. Here’s the actual data of birds that were only seen once.
American Golden-plover
American Tree Sparrow
Barn Owl
Bay-breasted Warbler
Black Capped Chickadee
Black Tern
Black-and-white Warbler
Black-necked Stilt
Boat-tailed Grackle
Canada Warbler
Caspian Tern
Chestnut-collared Longspur
Chuck-Will’s Widow
Common Raven
Crested Lark
Greater White-fronted Goose
Hooded Warbler
Indian Peafowl
Lark Bunting
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Pyrrhuloxia
Rough-winged Swallow
Semi-palmated Plover
Semi-palmated Sandpiper
Spotless Starling
Thick-billed Longspur
Tricolored Heron
Virginia Rail
Western Wood Pewee
Yellow-green Vireo
Dang, I’m ambivalent. But now I know stuff about my bird data. I am pleased about that.
I was not quite so pleased when I sleepily ventured onto the screened porch to guzzle some coffee before my 8 am standup (once again it went 30 minutes over). I went to set my coffee down and spotted a snakeskin on the arm of my chair. You know I’ve lived here a while, because all I did was ask Lee if he put it there. Nope. I set the skin on my big turtle shell where it looks quite decorative.
It wasn’t a big one.
I guess the rat snake left the way it came in when it realized there were no birds or rodents to snack on. Ah, it’s always something!
One thing about teaching one’s “golden years” is that it seems to take more energy to do normal things. I find myself able to do the things I have to, but optional tasks go by the wayside.
Nails are not optional. I found this one rather wimpy. I was trying for Pride. It’s like tepid support. I’ll do better next week.
Allowing myself to simply rest more has taken mental effort. I always think I have to be doing something. Just being present can be enough, though. It’s about time I lived my values instead of just paying lip service to them!
Like Carlton, I can just bask in nature and enjoy being alive.
Next week will be busy, then there’s lots of travel coming up, so perhaps it was a good idea to conserve my strength today.
I’ll sneak in some fun, too. The ponds and puddles are lots of fun for dogs!
Tomorrow I have some interesting information to share, so get ready to learn some birding facts about the Hermits’ Rest.
The rain gauge read 4.3 inches this morning though the pond flowed better. The creek is looking like a river, but we’ve seen worse.
It just keeps growing thanks to rain north of us.
However, in a break the nephew and I got my car to the tire place and got four new tires. I sure wish I’d brought a checkbook, because there’s a surcharge to use credit. Ugh. That ate a chunk out of my bank account. However, since one tire was dead, the time had come.
The crawfish pond is fuller today.
Later in the morning, I joined a good-sized group at a meet-and-greet with two candidates in the upcoming election. Both of their opponents have disappointed me in their policies that cater to billionaires and ignore their constituents’ issues about health care, water, etc.
The event featured amazing food and mimosas!
The candidates were both very impressive. They were intelligent, thoughtful, well educated, and friendly. They listened to us and did a great job answering questions. I’d forgotten that people running for office could be genuine and honest. Well, who wants to vote for people like that? Not a majority of Texans.
I liked the little American flags around the building.
Nonetheless, today’s experience was quite positive. People were genuinely excited that we could hold an event in this county.
After I came back, we fetched my car—it will be so nice to have my comfy car back.
Look how green it is!
After last week’s work, I decided to rest most of the afternoon, though Lee and I did enjoy a sunny period by swimming for a while. The water is quite pleasant. I look forward to swimming season! However, soon as I had fed the poultry, rain came back. It’s going to be a wet week!
The Hermits' Rest 