Ranch Life – Page 42 – The Hermits' Rest

Busy Birds and Hobbling Horse

It’s time for a nature post today. Nothing is better for me than some bird watching, and today was fun. The fewer leaves on the trees, the better I like it. I got to observe two large and colorful birds today, so both are the Daily Bird.

I’ve been seeing a pair of these birds a lot the past few weeks. I even saw their mating flight one day. Today they flew around and around where I was until one landed high in a nearby tree. you can even tell what it is in the picture!

Around here, we call them Mexican eagles, as they are the bird on the Mexican flag, after all. They are expanding their range northwards. They weren’t here when we first arrived; I saw my first ones in DeWitt County, where Lee’s dad was from. I think they’re very fun to watch.

The other large bird I enjoyed today I heard first, before I saw it. They are very loud when they call. Then I heard the banging of a big bill and knew it was the pileated woodpecker, the one whose holes I’d seen on our last camping trip.

I listened to the pecking long enough that I eventually spotted it on a dead branch on the biggest tree behind the back pond. I watched that pointy head go up and down for quite a while. I do have photos of it, but it was so far away that I only know it’s there from the Live Photo motion.

It made an excellent racket when it flew off, which capped off my morning walk well. There was also the usual red-bellied woodpecker out today, so it was easy to compare calls, but I didn’t hear the flicker today.

My afternoon animal adventures weren’t all that fun. I went out to prepare food for the horses and ride/exercise Drew, when I noticed that everyone had come up to see me but Apache. He didn’t come to me when I gave him his medicine, either, just nickered a greeting.

When he finally did move, my heart sank. He was limping. I forgot all about my plans and prepared the pens for him to stay in. I fed the other guys and got him all settled. His feet weren’t too hot, and the sore foot looked no different than it had last time I looked at it on Friday.

Hobble Horse. My poor buddy.

Sara, bless her, came over to check, even though she was having her family holiday meal soon. Apache was pretty happy other than his foot, since he had a giant bag of hay and I de-burred him. Sara put a boot on him to help. I have a harder to use boot I’ll try tomorrow.

Lee and I checked on him again before bedtime. Apache was so pleased to see me that he peed (he used to do that a lot). He was also quite pleased with the entire bale of hay I left him so he wouldn’t starve.

Hay? For me? Don’t bother unwrapping it!

Anyway, Sara and Tarrin agree it’s probably an abscess, which happened a couple of years ago. That’s no fun, because I can’t ride him, but it’s not a medical emergency like founder would be. Whew. I know it hurts, though.

The $$$ medicine he takes now will prevent founder by helping with his PPID symptoms, for which I’m grateful. I’m sure he’ll get better but it will take time, and we’ve been doing so well!

Bonus: while waiting for Sara I got all the burs out of Drew’s tail and he was friendlier than he’s been lately. I have a lesson on him tomorrow, so I hope Tarrin can help me figure out why he’s gotten so grouchy and hormonal.

What Could I Do Less Of?

What could you do less of?

Oh, probably blog. So here are photos, mostly of autumn. And Penney.

Day or Night, It’s All Right

Are you more of a night or morning person?

Let’s answer this prompt. It’s harmless. I used to prefer nights, back when I did a lot of music stuff and going out with friends. I think I liked the activities, like choir practice and rehearsals more than the fact that it was night.

This is here just because I thought it was pretty.

Now that I mostly stay home, I’ve come to enjoy my morning routine out in the fields and woods. It’s grounding and gets my mind ready to get stuff done. I do enjoy having morning rituals like coffee and filling out my bullet journal for the day, too.

I often meditate while looking at lichen and bark.

I have evening rituals, too, like blogging and reading before I go to sleep. I guess I like to ease into the day and ease back out.

Magazine patiently waiting for me to finish blogging

I enjoyed the distraction of a lesson on Apache this afternoon. I wanted to build on last weekend, and it worked. We are doing well together, and I’m impressed with his eagerness to learn. I’m a lot more calm, too. He’s feeling better.

Next lesson will be for Drew, but it’s been postponed for family stuff. That gives me lots of time to work with them both at home, though. Drew and I have lots to practice, too! He is still weird about his head but otherwise tons of fun.

Daily Bird

I think the great blue herons on the ranch will be upset (or more upset) with me if I don’t feature them, so today’s the day.

At least today I didn’t scare one who was busily cleaning out the overflow pond like I’d done for two days. I just watched them flying and posing at water’s edge.

My favorite thing about these large birds is their croak. They yell when disturbed and made to fly off. Often they don’t vocalize enough for the Merlin app to catch them, but it did this week. It’s a great creaky sound.

I’m glad we have water to attract these and the other herons/egrets here. They have so many postures and look so elegant when they fly. And they’re so big! It’s a nice contrast with all the tiny woodland birds.

The Hippie Takes a Day Off

What are your two favorite things to wear?

I say I’m a hippie, because when I saw the prompt for the day, two things popped into my head: blue jeans and t-shirts. I have had that as my uniform since the day I was allowed to wear pants to school, which I think was in 1971. It sure saved Mom money, so she didn’t argue with me. My clothing budget shrank a lot. And I bought my own shirts.

My avatar wears my usual stuff. Jeans, t-shirt, jean jacket and cowboy boots.

The t-shirts have only changed in that now there are more horses on them and before I had stylized drag racing cars. Peace symbols and flowers have stayed.

The jeans started out straight, became bell-bottoms, got high-waisted and low-waisted and repeated in various ways. Mostly I wore basic Levi’s.

I didn’t catch it, but I did see this goatweed leafwing butterfly today.

Now, on to the day off. I felt so good after a very long night of sleep, that I decided to take it easy today. I spent a lot of time birding, including being startled by the blue heron twice. It’s been picking off fish in the dwindling overflow pond, and neither of us can see the other until we’re on top of each other.

The other encounter I had came when Carlton and I took a walk in the woods. Suddenly he froze. I think he was trying to point like a hunting dog. We’d come upon an opossum along the stream bed. he must have smelled it, since he doesn’t see well.

Carlton was a good boy and followed me so the animal could go on about its business. It was a good walk the rest of the way. I’m glad I didn’t bring the Mighty Huntress Goldie or we’d have had another bloodbath. Ugh.

Other than enjoying birds, I enjoyed the horses. This morning I caught them at playtime, which involved Drew and Dusty nuzzling then running down the pasture to the pens, rearing and pawing, then running back. Dusty still has it in him! (Pictures are blurry because I was far away.)

Mabel eventually got into the running, but not the rest of it. I’ve noticed that she’s now strong enough to chase off any horse who tries to nip her.

Eventually Apache thundered back and forth until they all gathered around the hay bale. It’s nice to watch them play, and I’m glad they have the space to do so.

See, he doesn’t spend ALL his time staring into space.

Later I spent quality time with everyone, which is always so nice. Drew is a little pissy lately, since his head injury. But the other horses and Fiona were fine. I got all the burs off Mabel, even. I just have to wait until it’s her idea to have a petting session.

I had plenty of time to make dinner, and was so relaxed I didn’t even get upset when Dish Network didn’t have the channel where Sunday Night Football was. Lee just went over and set up the antenna he’d bought weeks ago for just such an eventuality. Boom. TV. It comes in great, actually.

I made a potholder or hot pad. It’s very thick, because I crocheted it with thermal stitch.

And yes, I wore jeans and a t-shirt today.

Daily Bird

I’m featuring the orange-crowned warbler today, because I’d never heard one here before, just on one camping trip. I didn’t see it, but I can sure ID one by sound now. It sounded like one of those rhythm instruments you scrape across in Latin music, usually five sets of scrapy sounds.

They only drop by here while migrating, according to the map.

A bird I saw a lot today was the Savannah sparrow. It’s a basic brown sparrow, but it’s everywhere this time of year. It and the pipit make little peeps.

I Am the Champion

No, I’m actually not the champion, but I’m very happy with myself and the beleaguered Apache, my equine partner in the last Working Horse Central show of the year. We’d been scheduled to go camping this weekend, but with no pet care, we canceled. I’m glad, because that let me go to the show.

Apache was jittery in Functionality, the first part of the show. I didn’t think I was, since I knew the dressage pattern and knew he could do all the parts. I was ready to try to improve our performance by showing what we’d learned, but I insisted got to show how to deal with a horse that decides not to leg yield or turn right at a trot, both things he knows how to do. We were at Tarrin’s, too, the place he practices.

But after some initial irritation, I let Apache chill in a stall, and he settled down. We ended up doing our best Trail pattern ever. We even did the gate! He really didn’t mess up anything but the side pass and a bit with the garrocha pole. But we did it all! I think we were pretty calm, too.

He refused to look perky, though. Still a zombie.

After enjoying watching Sara and the others do their parts (Aragorn seems to feel great and was a superstar), we did the final event, Agility. On this one you try to go as fast as possible. And we DID. We just zipped through the curtains, over the rails, on the slalom, and everywhere. If we hadn’t made some mistake I’m not certain of, we’d have won that one, because we were fast!

It was so much fun to do. It finally feels like we can be partners. We were turning and just plowing through. I’m so glad to have had this experience. It felt like we were really riding, not trying to ride, if that makes sense. Apache really seems to feel better now.

Sara said we look ready to canter. Ooh like the big kids. Hey, I may be slow, but I’m progressing. Everyone was happy for me, which felt great. Our little group is so supportive of each other that it’s hard to get down!

After the show there were end of year awards. It was cute to see how many awards and prizes the young competitors got. I think the littlest one would have been just as happy to just play in the mud obstacle with the Rottweilers.

Generous donors enabled us to have some very nice prizes for the winners in each division. I was very happy for Sara and Aragorn, who really worked hard and attended every show. She is the actual champion, in her Novice group.

Apache and I were second in Beginners to our friends Jacqui and Jambo. I really enjoy watching them! We had a lot of fun with our ribbons.

The winners of each group received beautiful belt buckles designed by one of the group moms. What a wonderful surprise. Sara sure deserves one for her effort. The big surprise was that the reserve champion in each group also got buckles. That means I got one, and it has turquoise on it!

I feel so legitimate now. I guess I always wanted to earn a buckle and work hard for it. Sara can wear hers to her next Working Equitation show! We are champions.

After last week having to abort any try at filming a virtual show entry, feeling connected and successful today was a real win. Life sure has its ups and downs! Today was up.

Apache made me proud. Even of the yellow.

Hard Decisions That Turn Out OK

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

You ask that, do you? I agonized a very this for about three years, during which time my mother passed away followed immediately by a breakup with the love of my life that was all my fault, followed by a serious of incredibly stupid relationship decisions and total failure at my career path. 1984-87 really stunk.

Here comes the brutal honesty for which I’m noted, for better or worse.

I’d say this was the period in my life when I realized that, no, I wasn’t the brilliant, nice, ethically consistent person I thought I was. That’s hard. I realized just how mentally screwed up I was in my drive to be perfect and that I was an emotional vampire who confused sex with love. Everyone has to realize they’re imperfect eventually (if they’re honest with themselves).

Worse, I ended up unable to stomach being an academic with all the drama, pressure, and competition. It just wasn’t what I’d hoped it was and I wasn’t actually very good at it.

So I decided to leave my career path and all the people I cared about at the university and do something else. I felt like a failure and that I’d let my family and friends down. That was hard. Acknowledging my inadequacy was hard. Admitting I was a bad partner was hard. Owning up to my anxiety and past trauma was very hard.

But no one really cared very much about my inner turmoil. They just wanted to see me stable, happier, and more positive. I ended up free of expectations and obligations and could move forward to use all I’d learned in a perfectly good career. I learned to love in a positive way. It was OK.

Oh look I’m crocheting something. It’s a hot pad in thermal stitch.

I make decisions much faster now. I’ve learned that whatever I do will be fine. I’ll learn the lessons I need to learn and keep putting one foot ahead of the other. Today is what matters and I want more peaceful, fulfilling days than stressful ones.

Daily Bird

I enjoyed a group of Harris’s sparrows today. I realize I’ve featured a lot of sparrows but we have eight kinds here! I heard these guys by the brush pile this morning, which pleased me because there was so much traffic on our road due to an accident that it was hard to hear birds in front of the house.

Harris’s sparrows make a less melodic sound than some of the others, more like very loud, low barks. It’s hard to decide how to describe it. But they were chatty and friendly today.

A pair of them started out in the honey locust, then got on the ground quite close to me, so I could easily see their interesting black head and chest markings. They’re the most distinctive ones, for sure.

By the way, the house wren and Carolina wren are loudly lobbying to be featured, so I’ll get something else soon. In the other hand, I’ve seen Mexican eagles (caracaras) doing mating dances in the sky twice this week. They do some loud wing flapping! So, they’re candidates. More to come.

Holiday Traditions Are Few This Year

Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?

If they are referring to the winter holidays, like the Solstice or Christmas, then there’s only been one constant since my children were little, and that’s to have cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We used to eat them while opening gifts.

Something cheerful: Vlassic running at sunset.

For many, many reasons I’m not doing much for Christmas this year. It’s going to be a hard one for much of my family, and I’m not feeling very celebratory. I’m just going to go somewhere with Lee, if we can get someone to feed dogs and medicate Apache.

Speaking of horses, I caught Drew and Fiona being friendly today.

If not, I’ll stay home and eat cinnamon rolls then cook a meal for the same people I cooked Thanksgiving for. Maybe I’ll make pork loin and correct cranberry sauce. I think there will be small, handmade gifts for people.

You know, I think I just don’t want to do anything religious. I’m not happy with things being done in the name of religion these days, especially the ones stemming from Moses and his tribes. I’m disappointed in wars, book banning, misogyny, religious intolerance, and fundamentalism. All of it.

For the solstice, which at least predates Christmas, there will be candles and maybe a fire if the place we go has a fireplace. I’ll make decorations out of things from the woods and put intentions of peace into them.

It will be fine to skip materialism and shiny things for one year and concentrate on helping struggling loved ones however I can.

Daily Bird

We had some rain today, but it only rained hard briefly. It did quiet the birds down. The daily birds just have to be the European starlings.

As I went out to slog through the puddles to feed the horses, I heard sounds like tiny bells. It was a huge flock of starlings heading off to some field now that the sun was back out. It always amazes me how many there are.

I learned in a magazine that the flocks often contain the local grackles as well. Blackbirds like each other, I guess. I’m never going to love grackles, those resourceful parking lot scroungers with the incredibly annoying whistles, the great-tailed grackles. I’ll work on it.

Oh, Peeves, There Are So Many

Name your top three pet peeves.

Yet, more than once in my life I’ve been called elitist for mentioning some of my peeves. After all, educated folks who know and use standard English are looked at as suspiciously progressive or something.

I won’t put the Latin name for this common buckeye so I’ll seem less snooty.

I’m all for creative use of language, am well aware that language changes constantly. So I am fine with observing new language, even if I never call u bae.

And I don’t even know ow which checkered butterfly this is.

So my peeves are mostly language usage. Not New language, just wrong stuff. Other than number 3 below.

1. Please use the contraction “you’re” when you are shortening “you are.” It’s easy. The word “your” refers to something of yours. Like your ability to spell words even when you’re using autocorrect.

I hope this peevish list doesn’t make me look like one of these.

2. Speaking of apostrophes, (a word with no apostrophes in it, by the way), they aren’t like garnish on top of salads that you sprinkle wherever they look cute. You do not pluralize nouns by adding ‘s. Nope. If there’s more than one item, you add a plain letter “s” unless the word ends in an s or z sound. The. You add “es” with no apostrophe. Even people’s NAMES are pluralized that way! Lee and I are Kendalls and Brunses. Now if we own something? Stick an apostrophe in there! Ms. Kendall’s pet peeves are a great example.

3. Ooh, ooh! I have another one to add to my apoplectic elitist frenzy of prescriptivism! There is a recent trend to take perfectly innocent nouns and make them into some kind of cutesy verbs. Like:

What are you gifting this year? It’s the time of year to gift and gift some more!
What’s your favorite way to morning? Coffee, of course.
It’s time to football!

I think it started with things like weekending and breakfasting and has just kept spreading.

4. It’s versus its. At least this one’s harder. But in this one case, the apostrophe is only for smooshing two words together and not for possession. So I get it that it’s hard to get its nuances.

Enough of that. Today was a fine day with much sunshine, pleasant coolness, and many butterflies. As you can see, I got a few photos, but I saw many more, plus a caterpillar I can’t identify.

Daily Bird

Today, since it was sunny and not very windy, there were lots of birds to enjoy. I counted eight types of sparrows! But the bird I enjoyed the most was the hermit thrush. It’s hard to resist a bird who shares a name with your ranch.

Today’s thrush was skulking in the big brush pile that was created last year in the woods, and it was chupping up a storm. it even drowned out a very vocal wren. I saw it a couple of times, but like the pipits, it looks a lot like a little brown bird that’s hard to distinguish without binoculars. I’m glad I know what it sounds like.

I have to admit that once again I heard a cool “bird,” then sheepishly remembered we do have a few squirrels out here.

It Always Helps…

…to have someone supportive confirm that your instincts are not off and you can do things you need to do, with the right tools.

I’m not talking about my new yarn spindle, though it’s a nice tool.

Today Tarrin came here to do the horse lessons, which was very helpful, even though I’d managed to write the time wrong on my calendar. I need a personal assistant!

I’d been wandering around looking at the heron and not realizing I needed to groom horses.

Since I got Drew to come with me easily, he went first. I got some really helpful input on not pushing myself to trot and trot if he isn’t in one of his good frames of mind. I feel so much better practicing on straightening him out at a walk. I do wish I’d gotten pictures of him doing his warmups. He was pretty spectacular cantering and jumping high, calmly. Probably the very cool weather had him perky.

He’s doing better in lots of ways. But I felt validated when Tarrin got on him and had trouble the same way I did. He took a long time to relax like he was still a bit unsettled. Maybe we’re both more settled now.

I had a really good lesson with Apache. He even came up to me in the pasture. All those “treats” (medicine) seem to help with that. I got good information from Tarrin on how to deal with his lethargy. She explained that he’s losing some of his stubborn fat and the toxins in it are going to his liver, so we’re going to give him some milk thistle for a time. And he’s changing to different supplements that will support his metabolism. Luckily most of it isn’t too costly.

As for the lesson, he had good energy for his ground work. I’d say he did the best I’ve ever seen him going over jumps and low obstacles. And he was a joy to ride. I got great information on ways to keep him standing up better, then we went out to test his “issues” with going outside his comfort zone.

Tarrin used his lead rope to keep him from flinging his head down (without constricting his comfortable head movement). Once he realized that option for making me nervous was gone, everything was better.

Since I took no pictures today, here’s a bonus.

We made tons of progress on re-settling him when he first starts to act concerned (as a helpful blog reader mentioned as well). We stopped and breathed, and we did lots of circles and figure eights to give him something to center himself on.

I did really well staying centered and calm, myself, thanks to not having the threat of him jerking the reins out of my hands and Tarrin providing helpful cues. I ended up feeling really good and like I have ways to make riding at home more fun with both horses. Whew. I sure needed the insights.

Carlton points out that he does nothing but emit good vibes. I love him, too.

I’m very grateful to have had my coach here at home for some help with my situations. Both horses are doing so well at her house. I’d like to get there at home.

Daily Bird

It was really cold (for here) so not many birds were out. But I thoroughly enjoyed listening to white-throated sparrows settling in the big tree by the pond for the night. Oh, the tweeting and chirping! It was like a mini bird concert. I was charmed.

What’s My Favorite Animal, You Ask?

What are your favorite animals?

Actually, no one asked this except the daily prompt writer, because everyone who knows me more than as a glancing acquaintance can tell you my favorite animal is the horse, followed closely by and endless parade of dogs.

Mabel laughs at the absurdity of anyone wondering what my favorite animal is.

I’ve loved horses since before I knew exactly what a horse was. My mother wasn’t clear on the concept either, and taught baby Suna that horses said “hee haw” of all things.

In fact, my most beloved toddler toy was, um, a stuffed giraffe, which I named Hee Haw, and insisted was a horse. I panicked when Mom washed it.

I really loved horses. There are photos of me in a tiny cowboy hat riding my spring-loaded rocking horse and a giant pillow with a plastic horse head modeled after Fury the TV horse. I can’t find a picture of that, but I did eventually have this 1964 book.

By the time I was past the toddler years I already had a collection of porcelain horses, given to me by my Swedish grandfather. He must have had a lot of faith in me not to break them. More have been broken by house cleaners than were broken by me.

I drew horses constantly as a kid. It gave me something to do when I was done with schoolwork. No photos of those sad things are available. I didn’t actually know many horses, so they were a little off, even though I stared at my Album of Horses book and repeatedly read Black Beauty. I must have been a tiresome child. I went through a lot of crayons and paper.

That tiresomeness hasn’t changed. I still make very annoying word choices (like over apologizing) due to my long-term self esteem issues, which embarrasses me, which makes my dedicated efforts to love myself just as I am even more challenging. huh.

Let’s talk about how I did my best to soothe my soul today.

Even though it was pretty nippy outside due to a biting wind, I went for a nice walk in the woods, since cattle weren’t in that pasture at the moment.

I got to enjoy watching this happy young snapping turtle.

I found a few signs of fall color and enjoyed watching my “secret spring” behind the back pond. It’s not really a secret, but probably only Sara and I have really noticed it. Maybe Kathleen did when she was meditating in the woods. We’re all forest bathers!

There were even a few birds to watch. Now that most of the leaves are off the trees I can see the chickadees, titmice, sparrows, and vireos much better.

In addition to this egret who was checking out the shallow seasonal pools and lots of swirling vultures, Merlin heard a new bird, more than once, even: an evening grosbeak. I’d love to see it.

Anyway, all the dark trees, the bright green rye grass, and wintry blue skies made me relax a bit and got me ready for toting numerous 50-pound bags of horse and chicken feed later.