Ranch Life – Page 128 – The Hermits' Rest

Milkweed and More

Time for another look around our dry ranch.

A view of my riparian garden. This is the first time we ever let things grow to their full size here.

You never know what you’ll find during a walk around the Hermits’ Rest. Even in this awful weather, there are fun things to discover. I found that out today, when I went over to get a photo of the little grouping of Zizotes milkweed I’d found recently. Lo and behold, the milkweed was doing its job!

Each plant had its own beautiful Queen butterfly caterpillar on it. They were merrily chomping away and waving their festive red antennae and spikes. I’ve seen a lot of Queens around this year, and I am happy to see that there will be quite a few more, if things work out well.

I took some pretty good photos, I think. (Aside: Lee just got one of the new iPhones with three cameras. I am looking forward to heading out into nature with it to see if I can get better close-ups and distance photos with it. However, I think I’m going to get myself a regular camera, too.)

I also saw more subtle beauty last night. After the Vrazels mowed our field, not much sticks up, since the grass is not growing while we are in drought. One plant is growing, and it’s the horsenettle. It’s a prickly thing, but it’s strong and tenacious, and I happen to think the flowers are beautiful.

Pretty purple nettle flower, and extreme finger close-up.

In any case, the sight of all those little purple flowers sticking up above the dead grass pleased me very much. Sometimes you have to be prickly and strong to deal with what life throws at you. Physical beauty is just a happy bonus.

I hope you can see the little spots of color from the horsenettle.

While I was admiring tenacity, I had to admit to myself that one of my least favorite garden weeds, the spotted surge, can be beautiful when allowed to flourish and grow. I’m just glad I don’t have to weed it and get all that milky stuff on me.

It looks like some kind of sea urchin or something.

Darn Dogs, Can’t They Be Polite?

It looks like our newest canine companion, Penney, will be needing some training or something. She continues to poop and pee in our bathroom every night that I’m there. We have three theories: one is I’m taking up her space in the bed, and another is she’s afraid to go downstairs in the dark. A third possibility is that she’s showing irritation that Vlassic’s in the room.

Carlton the weather dog points out that it still has not rained,

Poor Little Vlassic

Penney seems to have it in for him, at least when he’s trying to do his favorite thing, which is snuggle up with me or Lee. She believes SHE is the resident snuggler. We have been working with her on this, but as you can see from Vlassic’s head, we aren’t always successful.

Ow. Also I have an owie on my tummy from last week. Save me!

Now, they are fine outdoors, and run and play very happily.

Vlassic now spends his time at the ranch either outside on the porch, or upstairs in the bedroom.

And that’s a problem when night comes, because everybody wants to be on top of the bed. Harvey likes to sleep where he isn’t touching anybody, and growls if they try. Carlton is either next to me or in the dog bed. Vlassic is usually glued to me, while Penney glues herself to Lee.

I would like to know how I never realized how much brown hair is on the back of Vlassic’s legs. I swear, I look at him all the time. Cute little butt swirls, though.

But last night, Penney apparently wanted to be next to me, and went after Vlassic for being there instead. Much screaming, peeing on my dang bed, and growling occurred. I had to spend the rest of the night downstairs with a shaking (but relatively unhurt) dachshund.

I’m glad we know dog trainers.

Also, Dogs Like Stinky Things

Lee reports that Alfred came home Wednesday night with a very large spine of something. He loved it. It smelled very bad. Thankfully, it’s mostly gone now.

Penney explores the milkweed, looking for remnants of the spine.

Then, today, while Vlassic was in the office staying safe from Penney, he jumped in Mandi’s lap, causing her to react in horror. He’d found a very dead and stinky mouse. I guess that means our mouse removal campaign is working. But wow, is it smelly in the kitchen area, and so is he. We washed him, but not well enough.

At least the love of stinky items is funny.

Was a Little Out of It

Sorry for the absence. I was limiting my screen time, and dealing with “issues”. Then, out of the blue I got a very weird headache yesterday that lasted until 8 pm. Stress? Stroke? Jostling from the car incident? No idea.

It rained, so rain lilies and their golden cousins pop up.

I was no good to anyone in the meeting I was at in the morning. I mostly worried people. But the wildflower brochure is being printed now!

Thanks to that brochure I hit the first post-certification milestone for Master Naturalist. 250 volunteer hours. That’s me and Lisa.

I managed to get some “real job” work done, and then begged out and got my nails done. Of course, Yoe High maroon and silver. Tina did a great job making up a technique!

Recharge Time

This morning I waved goodbye to Eva and Joe, found out what was going on with the rest of the family, and realized I was gloriously alone for a while. Lee and Kathleen are still in west Texas, Mandi has other issues, we canceled Sunday dinner due to stress and confusion, so no visitors today. Alone.

Part 1

Of course, being me, I felt compelled to write up stuff for work blogs and volunteering blogs. And I’m late on my LLL newsletter, so I worked on that.

After 5 hours of writing, I’ve declared I deserve some recharge time. No one can keep going and going forever.

Family Stuff and Coping

Tell you what, it’s been a whirlwind around here the past couple of days. Lots of it’s been fun, but there has also been challenging stuff.

Me looking tired, but proud of my pink glass decanter to go with my orange glass.

Kathleen, Lee, and I have made a kind of unspoken pact to just go with the flow as our plans constantly shift due to weird circumstances. We’ve just been trying to start a business, deal with an elder care challenge, and remodel a building.

You can’t be sad if you have cherry pie with a paw print on it.

But all sorts of paperwork issues, legal surprises, scallywaggery (I made that up), illnesses, and twists and turns have meant schedules and priorities change at a moment’s notice. I’m proud of how patient we’ve been, though I think I could do better.

Just Having a Sit-Along

Today has been non-stop meetings, work, and networking, but it’s been fun. After working at my actual job all morning, we had another wildflower brochure meeting at the Hermit Haus.

I’m almost done with the brochure, thanks to lots of proofreading help. You can never see all your own typos. And I don’t spell in Latin well!

I took more Master Naturalist friends around the office, then some of us repaired to the Dutchtowne Deli for lunch. We had been talking about how we miss just hanging around and talking about things with each other, when John said that what we needed was to have a regular “sit-along,” (though that may not be the actual word he used, but I like it anyway).

Practicing our sitting and chatting after lunch.

How Do You Form and Maintain Community?

Monday evening we expanded our usual guest list to include some new people, in honor of Labor Day. We invited our cabin tenant, Tyler, along with his wife, Yanelly, who just moved to town. We also invited our new friends, Kayla and Matt, who recently bought a house from us and now live next to Martha and Mike.

And if you’re in the community, you have to hang out with Fiona (that’s Matt and Kayla)

We realized that we’ve been busy creating a community ever since we started coming to the ranch. We’re so grateful to Sara and Ralph for letting us buy our little slice of heaven and start down the road to making a life in Milam County. And now we’re helping bring in more folks, like my sister, Mandi and family, Mike and Martha, Kathleen, and Kayla and Matt!

You do have to cook a LOT of burgers for a community cookout, says Mike.

Forming a community

Pretty much everyone who’s become part of my social circle in Milam County has been because I volunteered to do something. That may explain why I’m such a “joiner,” as Sensei Larry, who taught my sons karate, has been saying for 20 years or so.

New Mamas and Wannabes

I just had to share this! As I was driving into the Wild Hermits part of the ranch, I saw our tenant messing with a cow. Hmm, I thought, some of those cows looked pretty bagged up yesterday (yeah I talk rancher talk to myself).

Sure enough, when he left, I saw this shiny new calf he’d just tagged. Hooray! It’s New Mama time here! These won’t freeze to death for sure.

It turns out there were two new brown calves, but the mama blocked my view when I drove by. Lucky, I found that baby in a photo of the other pair.

There’s another baby hiding at right. Moo!

I found the cool magnifying glass thing in my photo tools. Handy.

Wannabe

I guess the cow hormones must have drifted over to the chicken coop, because Blackie has gone broody. That means she wants to hatch eggs. Last week Kathleen and I managed to remove one.

Yesterday and the day before, she was not happy to have me poking at her, but today I just used both hands and managed to remove four more green eggs from her. I only got poked badly twice.

I read that they stay broody 3 weeks, so I hope my hand makes it through two more. I also hope she eats and drinks enough. They only leave the nest once a day. Poor Blackie. She’s all hormonal.

That’s Blackie in the middle of this picture from back when I had more chickens.

(The remaining 6 chickens are still fine! They love the cube!)

Canine Capers: Dogs of Hermits’ Rest Report

I’m taking a day off from thinking about complicated issues and hard stuff, at least for the most part. I did do some brainstorming this afternoon with my friend Martha as a result of our spiritual life crises. That was good for us both!

It’s been a bit more relaxing than usual around here, so we’ve been hanging out with our precious canines. I’m relieved to say that they are all getting along really well. The worst behavior issue is that Vlassic has been avoiding the family room ever since Penney arrived and lashed out at him when he wanted to share a lap with her.

Vlassic is actually touching Penney. Harvey’s just watching the young ones tussle.

I think that’s getting better, though, because they have all been in my den on the couch playing away (I had intended to take a nap, but instead I took pictures of the smaller dogs all playing together indoors).

Chicken Cube

Today I had two potential things to write about. I’m chickening out (oh how humorous) and writing about the hens rather than ranting about self-righteous millennials.

We’ve been stable with chicken numbers for a couple of months now. Mandi thinks it’s because her dogs have managed to catch a couple of owls. I’m of two minds. I love owls, and they’re protected. But you can’t stop dogs from protecting “their” kittens.

Since it’s been so hot and the seven ladies I still have are trying their best to keep laying, I felt like they deserved a treat, so while I was at Tractor Supply, I got them a huge 25-pound cube full of grain and scratch that they can peck at and have fun. I think they liked it.

I also thought I should show you how well that little scamp Buffy is doing. Her tail feathers are growing back after Jess the blue heeler puppy tried to carry her home in her mouth. But they are coming in much darker than they were before!

The black chicken is acting broody or something. She won’t get out of the nest box. I hope she’s okay!

And…that’s my cheerful, pleasant chicken report.