It’s still raining today. There were brief respites, but we’ve had at least an inch. Whew. The good news is we have a lot of mushrooms to enjoy.
Happy puffballs.
I tried to go check out what was going on at the fence project. But it started raining real hard, so we went off to see a horse that we may board over here to keep Apache company. It’s all alone, and belongs to some folks who live near our office.
Howdy. I’m Prince.
He needs a Coggins test and stuff, but if he came here, his owner says we can ride him. That would be fun. At least he’s small, and he’s named after my dad. This isn’t a done deal, but a possibility. In any case, I got to meet a friendly horse.
It then rained more. But, not before I went out to take some pictures of the Black-eyed Susans. I lucked out and Penney joined me. I got some lovely photos of her looking romantic.
I’m so romantic.
She sure blends in well with scenery.
This is just so beautiful. I love the storm clouds.
Being with the dogs makes you notice so many things! I didn’t even get mad at Vlassic when he jumped up and got my entire outfit muddy.
Who, me?
But even muddy weather has its good points. There’s always beautiful nature to enjoy. Like, why were there so many mud daubers on sunflower leaves? And why is Mr. Toad living in this trough?
Wasps and toad.
All in all, it’s good to be back in the swing of things. I got work done and caught up with my Master Naturalist blogging. It’s volunteer week at work, so it was authorized. What fun! I’ll try to get more fascinating tomorrow. I’m still wiped out.
Penney is tired too. All that glamour wore her out.
Hooray for being back at the Hermits’ Rest! by the time we got home, I was all shaky and frazzled, and probably the relatives thought I was babbling. But the dogs sure were glad to see us. It felt fantastic to have my Carlton in my lap again. It was great to get back in my bed, and even great to have Penney lined up right beside me all night!
Harvey is very glad I am back.
The trip through Louisiana was beautiful, mostly following US84, and then following roads that made up the original El Camino Real de Tejas, which goes right to Milam County and is what our Master Naturalist group is named after.
We are in the section just to the left of Bryan on this map.
Highlights included a whole area devoted to catfish farming, including a place that made al the nets and a huge catfish food plant. Talk about specificity! The catfish farms also could have passed for egret farms. There were so many birds!
The lake that used to be the Sabine River and separates Texas from Louisiana.
We also drove through many beautiful national forests, and I carefully observed all the logging activity. Mostly it was lush and beautiful. There were plenty of cute towns, town squares, and such as well. It’s nice to see thriving small towns with no television presence to make them go into tourism overdrive.
What’s this? A dike, holding back the Mighty Mississippi in Louisiana.
The farther we drove, the wetter it got. It’s apparently been drizzling all week at the ranch, which slows down the fence-building operation. Today it’s pouring, but I did manage to go see Apache, Fiona, and the other horses to help put some medicine on poor spice, who has a big wound where a growth was removed. Apache has developed thrush in his feet from all the dampness. Can that poor horse catch a break? But the highlight was seeing the newest member of our farm animal family, Haggard, who is a young Black Angus bull from the sale barn. He’s tame as a kitten, and looks like he’ll be a nice small bull, perfect for first-year heifers to get easy births from.
What a sweet little guy.
Right now, Haggard is in quarantine, but he sure loves it when people show up with food!
Our field is covered with flowers. Can’t wait to get out there in the sunshine.
I said hi to the chickens yesterday, but didn’t see Steel, who is the only chick left and keeps escaping to hide in some tall, thick grass behind the coop. At least that one didn’t wander off and get lost. I’ll try again with chicken babies!
What a sweet little wildflower in Mississippi!
Otherwise, all is well. I may have more fun news later in the day, after I go into town for a bit, but right now I’m just trying to get settled back into a routine and figure out what’s going on. I’m lucky that this week is our work’s week to go do volunteering, because that will let me catch up on the volunteer work I have to do! Ain’t that great!
And, just one more flower from my travels yesterday. There’s always something pretty growing near a gas station, I guess!
It sure is good to be back home, especially since Kathleen cleaned the dickens out of the house. They sure did a great job taking care of things while we were gone. Now maybe we can have some FUN.
It appears that I have become extremely boring, or maybe I’ve always been, but people figured it out. I’m just joking around, but I was sad to see only 11 people looked at my post yesterday. I don’t think I’ve had so few hits since I was first starting out! It’s okay, because I found the information on black folks and swimming useful, and I’ll have all the links shared on the blog so I can find them again!
Honestly, I find myself boring right now, since I work until so late that there’s no way to go do much interesting afterward (because work is an hour behind me, so their 5 pm is my 6 pm). You can only post so many photos of the view of the ocean. It’s still there, though. Lucky for us, we went back to the German/Austrian restaurant last night, so I can share how pretty our beer glasses were. Lee appears to be in love with his beer. I got the same dark Hefe that I had last week. I think that may be my favorite kind of beer now.
I love my beer.
I ate some brats and sauerkraut, which was darn good comfort food, and splurged on an apple strudel dessert. That’s the only dessert I’ve had since we’ve been here (other than a little ice cream from the grocery store)! Lee says we’ve become old people, because he was displeased to miss the news and Jeopardy last night. We’ve become the people all those drug ads are aimed at. Help!
Since I didn’t do much other than work and knit yesterday, let me be more interesting and share that, despite a week of rain and more rain, the fencing for Apache and Fiona is moving along. It appears that the fabrication stage of all the fence posts is over, and the installation stage has begun. Apache will have a larger place to hang out than he’s in now, but one that will be easy to keep free of lush grazing.
This picture tells all. It’s rainy, Carlton has stayed glued to the nephew all week, and soon the portable round pen will be a round pen, not cattle fencing! In the far background by the RV, you can see a LOT of fencing material ready to be used.
One good thing about all the rain is that indoor activities had to be done, so all the burned-out can lights throughout the downstairs at the ranch house got replaced. Kathleen says it’s like the sun’s shining in there now. That has to perk everybody up! I’m so grateful to see how well things are being cared for in our ridiculously long absence. I guess it’s our turn to leave and never get to come home. (I assure you, we are GOING home on Friday; gas situation is good now.)
Here’s another H-brace that’s up. Looks like we have yellow flowers blooming now. Sniff. I miss my ranch.
Other than that, I’m happy that all’s well with our business. Since the restrictions are lifting, we seem to be getting more clients, and we got some new caregivers, too, thanks to an amazing job fair that Kathleen, Meghan, and I’m sure some others put together last week. The Hearts Homes and Hands team is a bunch of incredible people, and Lee and I are so grateful for the very hard work Kathleen and the crew are doing. I did my part by explaining how personal assistance services work to a coworker who needs one for his mother. He can’t be our client, but maybe he can recommend us to someone else!
Yes, the dogs are happ
It’s off to work for me, and apologies for being so dang boring! It’s not boring at home, though, because yesterday’s sunset was beautiful. I’m so glad people posted lots of photos on Facebook. Here’s the one I was sent from the ranch. Thanks to the family for sending it! I miss you!
My patience paid off! I have been scanning the ocean from our room every day since we got to Myrtle Beach. I mentioned before that it was oddly empty of…anything. Slowly, but surely, more things have showed up. I saw a couple of yachts, a kayak, and sailboats yesterday, and today there are parasailing boats, sailboats, jet skis and all sorts of activity. Maybe today is the first official day of “the season” or something.
What I was actually looking for all that time was dolphins. I knew they were there, but all I saw was a glassy sea. Today, though, I saw something black out there. I figured it was a sea duck or something, so I grabbed the binoculars (so glad I brought them) to check.
This time, there are dolphins in that glassy expanse.
There was at least one, and maybe two pods of dolphins out there, playing and jumping. At one point, three of them were jumping together. It was mighty fine entertainment! I had a blast, and I felt like it was my Mother’s Day gift from my Mom and Mother Nature. What a full heart I had watching those families playing together!
The black dot in the center is a dolphin heading down. Obviously I couldn’t get a real photo, since they were way out there.
It’s Mother’s Day in the US as I mentioned. It’s been hard since my older son stopped speaking to me, but I think he knows I love him anyway. Maybe I’ll hear from the other one today! I liked the new Facebook background that showed up today, of love cactuses. That’s how family is; you love them, even if it’s prickly.
My sentiments.
Sometimes you lose loved ones, they don’t appreciate you, they don’t understand your motives, or they have challenges that make loving hard for them. I’m sending love to all of them, as well as to my own loved ones I don’t understand. I’m no saint about it, myself!
I did enjoy mothering my kids!
Hug someone you’re allowed to safely hug today, and enjoy whatever gift Mother Nature brings to you, my friends!
Um, that would be everyone, right? I’ve known I’ve needed to do it for quite a while, since we downsized our real estate work and parted (as good friends) from our Hermit Haus Redevelopment partners. Eventually all that internet stuff will get retired, though I need to figure out a way to archive our blog and photos of our work.
My reward for boring as heck work.
I’ve never liked using Gmail but it’s the best option for right now. My presence at Hearts Homes and Hands is very minimal, since I’m not beloved in all parts of our community. I’m no longer too concerned about it. Life at the ranch is good, and that’s what counts! Anyway, I’d only use that email account for business.
Speaking of the ranch, this will grow up to be the arch going over our cattle guard or second gate. It’s happening!
Still, it has boggled my mind when I realize how many logins, sign-ins and account names are tied to your email address! I spent hours this morning changing things, and I’m nowhere near finished. But, it had to be done, and I certainly don’t have many expanses of unbooked time at home!
After I at least got my major accounts and lists switched over, I tediously went through my Gmail account and deleted spam and ads from 2015 until today. 20,000 plus emails. Fun times. I didn’t want to delete them all, since there might be personal email in there. Yep, my sister, my friend Pamela, and two others had been sending me things I never saw.
I’d rather have been at the pool!
Actually, that’s what prompted moving at this exact time. My sister, who is the latest person to say they are going to the Farm in Yorktown for a weekend and not returned, texted me to “check email.” Nothing like a cryptic text to get me concerned, you know? But I couldn’t find anything on my work or personal accounts. Was something wrong? Did I mess something else up? Finally I looked at Gmail. Whew. There was a message there. I’d forgotten to send some money in our confusing travel stuff.
All, right, I said, it’s time to start using that account and phasing the other one out. Once I figured out how to delete everything from a particular sender, it was only slightly unbearable. And at least I could look out at the ocean while deleting. It was fun mass deleting email from presidential candidates who won one and l0st another election. Quite a trip through time.
I’d rather have been in the ocean. Yes I went in. No jellyfish got me.
Now I have that account organized and set up to store email right. Still, I have to figure out what stuff I get on Hermithaus I want to keep getting. And I have to figure out why the new signature I made refuses to show up. This is why I didn’t want to embark on this task. Ugh
But, I’m at the beach, in the shade, and drinking a drink out of a bucket. And my ranch family is busy planning a swimming pool.
Everyone is saying my obligations can wait, so today is just Beach Day. Hope you’re doing well and handling what can be a hard weekend for some of us.
It’s a good thing folks back home sent me news, because I literally had meetings at 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the books today. Luckily one got moved and a few of them were short, so I had time to breathe. And I snuck in some content creation, too. Go beach me.
News from the ranch ranges to worrisome to great. What’s worrisome is that Apache still isn’t 100% and Trixie the farrier/body worker isn’t sure why. Even on his extremely limited pasture, he’s managing to put on weight, too (still seems thin to me). Sara is taking good care of him, and even got to ride him. It turns out though, that Apache’s favorite object is now Sara’s back massager. Trixie used it on him, and according to Sara, he “melted.”
Happy horse time. More, Trixie, more!
We will figure out some way to get Apache’s diet right so he can feel okay again. That will be made better by the fact that I ordered a major ton of pipe yesterday, which will provide the foundations for our new world of fencing, pens, stalls, cattle working area, and expanded dog run (so the dogs can sit with us out front). This is going to be SO much work!
Look at all that pipe! And you can see dogs, too. Hi dogs!
Luckily we had the equipment for dealing with this stuff. We heard the Kubota tractor could not handle the weight of the pipe, so the front-end loader had to come to the rescue. We just knew that purchase was a good one.
I can handle anything.
We also hear that the dogs are having lots of fun “helping” out on the project. I can tell Harvey is having a good time!
I got to go for a ride.
Over here at the beach, we’d wanted to go back to Brookgreen, but I had too much work! I did get a moment to pick up a thank-you gift from Irina, the lady who helped us get more condo time. She is the first person I ever met from Moldova, and she was so impressed I’d heard of her home country, that she shared some of her wine with us. Who knew that Moldova was “the wine country?”
Can’t wait to try this, though I’d like to share it with friends and family.
I also got a tiny walk in between meetings, where I saw that workers were testing out some of the fancy new rides being set up near our condos. It looks like it will be a permanent installation amusement park, not a roving carnival. I will tell you this: I will not be getting on that roller coaster with a section that goes around and around in it.
Nope, not getting on that thing, ever.
It was really windy today, so we probably didn’t miss much not going anywhere to look at nature. Of course, I continued my hunt for natural beauty on Myrtle Beach, because I can’t help it. I found a rock with rainbow bubbles and a fresh little fish, soon to be seagull food.
It’s an anchovy
That haze is blowing sand
Seafoam doing its magic.
But, the best thing we found were these jellyfish that washed up. They are just the most interesting creatures. It’s hard to believe they’re real when you look at them up close!
Cannonball jellyfish
And now, it’s on to another evening of ocean watching, wine drinking, and eating delicious food (I made a huge piece of salmon last night, and seasoned it with crushed Doritos, since I’d forgotten to get any seasonings, and it was surprisingly tasty!).
We got to so many families enjoying themselves playing games together, got to watch a dog who couldn’t believe how lucky he was to find so much dirt to dig holes in, and even met a woman walking on the beach alone, wearing a tiara. It was her birthday, and she was rejoining her family in our building. I hope you are having fun enjoying the simple things, wherever you are.
Whew, today was extra windy. During my ENDLESS meetings, I kept being distracted by something that looked like fluffy dandelion seeds very briskly zipping by, completely horizontally. There were an unusually large number of them, way more than the number of dandelions we have going to seed. What had the wind blown in?
First, a brief digression. The wind brought more than fluffy bits! It also brought our long-lost housemates. We have a bunch of happy dogs and people!
Mommy! They locked me in the storage room!
For people who have gone through, shall we say, a lot since they left for a weekend back in February, or was it January, they look good! We are all excited about all the projects we need to get moving on.
I was so grateful that I grew them these flowers. okay, Nature grew them.
In our zeal to plan things, the nephew went out with a spray can of bright orange paint, marking where Apache’s new stable and pens will be, along with cattle pens. And you know, orange paint smells good. If you’re a dog, you’d want to roll in it, especially if it complements your long, white fur.
It looks good on me.
We went over to look at another fencing area, and there, all over the ground, were the answers to my questions about the fluffy things.
A sea of white fluff.
It turns out that in the two days since I’d taken my photos of the small-flowered catchfly, they’d gone to seed, most spectacularly! Everywhere there were little towers covered in fluffy seed pods.
Towers of fluff surrounded by little stars.
Y’all, in person this was breathtaking. The catchfly was all interspersed with starbursts of the annual trampweed. My two new flowers went to seed together and created a Magic Kingdom of weeds, as I said in my awe.
Wine cups and the few paintbrush flowers that made it through the winter added beautiful accents.
All this beauty was after so many of the seeds blew away this morning. Wow. So many seeds. And none of us remember ever seeing the two white fluff-makers before. What a welcome home gift to our family!
Future horse pen also has me happy.
To be honest, my whole day was magical. I achieved all my goals in my pushback campaign, and it’s only Wednesday! I’ll share more about that tomorrow. Right now, I’m pretty dang tired and don’t even know where I’ll sleep tonight (that’s a GOOD thing).
How could you leave me? Kathleen will take pictures, not to worry.
I am, once again, grateful for the support and encouragement of my friends, colleagues, readers and listeners. You’re all incredible in your own unique way.
This is no fun, but it’s the way it goes out in the country. This morning, I went out to check on the chicks, and Bronzer wasn’t there! What?
We’re still here
I was so surprised and sad. I looked everywhere for the chick. There was no sign of anything getting into the coop. There was no gap small enough for a chick to get out of. There was no sign of foul or fowl play. What the heck.
I’ll miss you, little buddy.
I went all over the place listening for peeps and looking for feathers. There was nothing. It’s a mystery. I’m sure there are lots of plausible scenarios for what could have happened, but I’m honestly not up for conjecture. I’m also not up for being blamed or told what I did wrong. We live on a ranch. There are predators and other dangers. It’s how it goes.
I took my bummed out self in the garage to look for eggs, and suddenly saw something glowing like a light. What in the world do we have that shines in the dirty old garage?
So shiny.
Then I figured it out. More bird sadness. It was a male Ruby-throated hummingbird. Well, damn.
So beautiful.
To be realistic, of course birds die, and they have to die somewhere. But that was a sad thing to find right after losing the chick. He was so pretty and tiny.
Wow.
I went back in the house for more meetings, armed with my pushback strategy of setting up myself and my team for success. After all eight hours of meetings it was TIME to go out and get some air, and check for eggs.
Off I went into the corner with the mop nest. As I peeked in, I realized the nest was occupied. By a pretty chicken snake. With a lump in its belly. I didn’t get scared; I just got peeved. Damn it, those are MY eggs. There was still one in there, so I used a stick to get it out. Ha.
Rather than a snake, please enjoy Engelmann daisies.
I tried to get help removing the snake, but it was gone by the time We got back. Great. I hope it didn’t also find a chick to eat. And I wish the hens would go back on top of the fridge!
Now, that’s lovely. At least something is thriving!
In summary. It was not a good chicken day today, even though they got their yummy new food in, finally. I’m getting more hens, though, because coop updates are now coming up soon! More on that later!
The Hermits' Rest 