It’s rained for many hours. That usually doesn’t happen here. Today’s rain was what Lee calls “a good soaking rain,” which I hope means soil moisture is being replenished.
Wet red yucca, one of the few plants actually planted here.
I endeavored to find inspiration today, since it’s so cold and wet. The temperature has changed so little today that I wonder if my temperature blanket will have a solid square when I get to today.
I finished February last night. You can see it getting warmer.
My sick chicken got upset being confined so I let her out. This morning, there she was, all wet on the ground. So I took her into the warmer and dryer hen house. I thought at least she could feel less damp. But no, I went to check late this afternoon and she had dragged herself all the way to the other end of the chicken run. At least she’s under the covered part. I’m not good at veterinary tasks.
Poetically wet thistle.
Taking pictures of wet things, and cropping them square, has slightly cheered me up. All the plants and insects are hanging in there, at least.
Rain bounces off me!
I can’t get to the horse pens to feed them. The drainage situation there is hard to solve. But they seem fine with all the nice grass and don’t mind wading through puddles to get in their shelter. Apache is probably enjoying the lack of sun on his pink skin.
What? I’m eating!We’re eating, too. The weather is fine.
The rain returned as soon as I came back inside. I guess the ponds will keep flowing into Walkers Creek.
Water’s still coming in from across the road. Headed to the creek
It’s time to snuggle with dogs and stay dry. I hope you enjoyed the wet or square things.
Long day that at least brought good rain without an accompanying tornado warning, that’s what it was. I did get out in the dampness to look for new flowers. Two I saw yesterday when I didn’t have the phone with me were hiding thanks to the rain, but I was pleased to spot our patch of interesting paintbrush flowers.
Four shades.
These usually red flowers do sometimes show some variety. My friend nearby has some yellow ones, too. I think they look wonderful in yellow, though, even if it makes them less interesting to hummingbirds. The apricot one is pretty spectacular, too.
Castilleja indivisa sports
I’d have had some beautiful wine cups to share, but yesterday the tenants turned the field behind the house into little while marshmallows of haylage. My hope is that they come right back.
Former wildflowers. And oats or something that they harvested.
Oh well. I have a few spots with grass making blossoms. Here’s some pretty peppergrass and little quaking grass.
You know, if you don’t mow until the flowers go to seed, you get a lovely show every year. Here are the two sides of my road. I like my side.
LeftRight
I guess we each get to do what we want to on the land we’re in charge of. We have some freedoms still! Speaking of which, now that the fish are gone, Mabel is free to swish her nose in the water all she wants.
Well, good, cause I’m thirsty. (Her ears are back because Apache is coming up behind her to make her move.)
And the sickly hen seems a bit better! You never know.
It was a long, long day full of minor hiccups and irritating happenings. But, spoiler alert! Almost everyone lived!
I didn’t know the answers to any questions at work. So I took a break to put a new office chair. That was not a break. I sweated my butt off and tweaked my back, but I have a chair to replace the one that’s in the RV.
Then it was horse lesson time. It was fine, but I was already tired when I started. I was in no mood for Apache to decide he didn’t want to load in the trailer. Drew went right in. whew.
Apache redeemed himself and was nice to this tent moth caterpillar.
Tarrin was also having a challenging day with a bunch of young horses, so we were both happy to see Apache do a great job in his lesson. We are both improving, so maybe his next show comments won’t say “hollow” on every line. At least I now know what that means, so I can learn to fix it!
He’s a winner.
I’m proud that my old buddy is working so hard with me. We are literally starting from the bottom and slowly getting better. He got a 28% on his disastrous trail test at Sara’s, but Tarrin said I did well keeping calm with him. He apparently isn’t great so close to home, so next time I’ll film at Tarrin’s! I know Apache enjoys this stuff when he’s not nerved out.
Trying not to be hollow.
How did Drew do? Well, he also was having a DAY so I didn’t ride him. I guess I need to get his dentist appointment and more body work. Or wait for him to grow up. He’s calmer in the round pen with me, but Tarrin is teaching him, which is less fun than me. I just sit there and look at how pretty he is.
Sooo pretty, even though he’s standing awkwardly.
Plus when I got home I found a sick chicken. No clue what made her sick. Maybe the snake bit her? Well, they are living longer than my first bunch. I’ll try to help her. I put her in isolation.
I’m ready for another day. They can’t all be great! I have lots to be grateful for.
Things are back to normal for spring in Texas. There was another tornado warning here, but just some hail happened, not like what others in the US have been going through. Today’s fun was record heat. Then the power went out all over town! That’s spring here.
Nope. No four-leaf ones here, either.
But this post is about a new pet. Spring brings the return of many old friends here. In fact, I was just thinking I was surprised I hadn’t seen any snakes yet this year. I didn’t see any over the weekend, either. But, the chickens let me know my search was over when I went to feed this morning.
Hello!
Well, it sure seemed at home in the nest boxes. And there were no eggs. I didn’t see any lumps in our new pet, though.
It’s cozy here.
I just watched it for a few minutes, and I was surprised to see it slide…somewhere. I went around the corner and saw these very convenient (to a snake) slots made by the supports for the boxes. Someone asked why I didn’t stick my hand in there, and my reply was that the slots also looked like excellent habitat for black widows and brown recluses.
Blurry, but you can see the holes.
I’m feeling more happy with the snake right now, because I came back later and found five eggs. At least the snake is sharing! Later, though, after horse riding, feeding, and medicating, I went to shut the door to the henhouse and there it was, outside the chicken area.
It’s so shiny.
So, as lovely as this rat snake is, and even though there are lots of mice in the hen area, we will have to discuss its meal choices before I’d let it stay.
But I have room for another pet, because we did an oopsie yesterday. Kathleen and I teamed up to do the spring worming for the horses, which went well except for Mabel, who was not at all interested. She and Kathleen both ended up with wormer all over themselves and I had some on my hands. Everyone rinsed off in the water trough. Oops.
Wah. My fishies!
That was NOT very smart of us humans, but Mabel had more on her, and she wasn’t about to let us wipe her mouth. Luckily feeder goldfish are quite inexpensive. And I do still have one trough with big fish in it.
If you’re a bird watcher in central Texas, one of your goals is to see an endangered golden-cheeked warbler in its native habitat. Up to now, I’d never seen one, even though I’ve been places where they are found. No wonder I vowed to attend the golden-cheeked warbler walk sponsored by the State Park where I’m staying!
I was also hoping to see some new plants. This is Buckley’s oak, new leaves.
I almost missed the hike, because I didn’t realize it was on a trail we can’t get to in the motor home. Luckily, Mike and Kim, in the site next to us, also were going and gave me a ride.
The trail goes through the highest part of Meridian State Park, so there are different plants.
The hike was led by Aaron, a fellow Master Naturalist and expert on the flora and fauna of this park. It made the experience much better, because he had so much knowledge of what interesting plants, insects, and geological formations we’d see. Oh, and he knew what the warbler’s call sounds like.
Aaron shows us a plant.
There were around 15 people in the group, ranging from kids to elders. Most knew something about birds, and a couple were experts. Even the woman who runs the Waco Wetlands (where we went on a field trip once), was there. Everyone shared their knowledge, helped each other out, and was respectful.
Our fellow Master Naturalists.
Thanks to the expert guidance, I learned so much about new plants. There was native yellow clematis, bedstraw that isn’t sticky, and many varieties of galls on plants (with baby wasps or beetles in them). It was a truly beautiful mixed oak and juniper forest to explore.
A rare gall. I think.
All the while we walked and stopped to investigate things, in typical naturalist fashion Aaron was listening for the warblers. About halfway through the trail, we heard one. It sang and sang, so we all got quite familiar with its very interesting sound.
It was there somewhere.
We found the area where it was, thanks to its helpful tweeting. Imagine my surprise when I was the first one to spot it! It looked just like a photo of a golden-cheeked warbler! Glad I had the good binoculars.
A photo of a golden-cheeked warbler by the great Greg Lasley, from iNaturalist.
I would love to share my glorious photos, but all I got was these. I uploaded a sound file to ID it.
Those bird-like shapes are my exciting
It was fun to watch it in person. The little fellow sang and sang for us, so everyone got a good view. We heard another one later, too. Eventually we moved on to looking at more interesting plants and insects. My new friend Mike found the shiny caterpillars, while a younger guy with a great camera found the ones on the leaves. I found the red bug and exciting moths.
Insect sights
Apparently I found a rare plant for this area, a Western Rick jasmine. It was one of many that I’d never seen before.
It’s tiny.
I was sad to see the hike ending. I learned so much about the ecosystem here at the place where east meets west in the US. Aaron was a great exemplar of what a Master Naturalist should do as they help interpret the land they’re sharing with others.
Happy hikers
Here are some more things I observed today. This was a most interesting place!
I don’t know what to do or say or think about the divided society I live in. I’ve been trying to hold it together and feeling isolated and more and more defeated. I had such bad nightmares last night that I knocked a glass of water over. What a mess. Things are a mess.
Hint about why I’m sad. I love children.
I know I’m not alone. I am grateful for a supportive network of friends. I’m grateful for people with different perspectives who are willing to talk to me. But there’s so little I can do to help make a safer society (where we don’t worry about all the things we’re concerned about from all sides). The Texas Legislature has no interest in my thoughts. I’m not a huge lobby.
Just a coincidence, I’m told.
I think all the people I know feel powerless, like someone else is making decisions. We just blame different factions. Everyone is frustrated. The world feels like a scary pile of poop. I can’t change that. Even venting among friends only goes so far.
I wish I could just be a bird, or a scarlet pimpernel.
So, I clean things. Poopy things. Thankfully, a vacuum cleaner for the RV arrived. I took out my frustrations on mouse turds. (And dirt; there were only a few turds.)
Clean and ready to go.
That helped. But I needed to clean more. So I shoveled all the horse poop out of the trailer. I hope that doesn’t make me sick. It did involve hay, after all.
I didn’t have to clean the shed. Someone had already weed-eated what the horses had missed. My tack room helps me feel better.
I wasn’t done cleaning. The tack room doesn’t have much of a mouse problem right now, but there are “fly specks” on my stuff. Or were. I cleaned all that, too. Then I got out my good old buddy the label maker!
The bull needs his own bin label.
I have some new horse supplements and will need feeding help soon, so new labels had to be made. I felt so organized and productive. And I’m control. At least I can control my dang horse stuff, and I even feel safe in my little room.
Labels and more labels.
I actually do feel a little better just by making my little part of the world cleaner and happier. And I guess that’s the lesson I needed to remind myself of. I can do what I can do. I can clean things (no wonder I like grooming the horses).
These guys helped by picking up hoof trimmings.
And now I can think about ways to help others. I’ve send some funds to recent tornado victims. I can contribute to organizations I agree with, and I CAN contact elected officials and remind them they’re human and are supposed to serve humans, not institutions. I guess.
Not much exciting going on today, so I’m sharing some jaw-dropping photos of bluebonnets on our property, taken by the great photographer and legendary hermit, Ernest Lee Bruns, Jr.
My contribution to the theme is the latest temperature blanket square, which is grass green and celestial blue.
This also happens to be the colors of the kids’ high school, McNeil High School. Not easy colors to work with.
One more photo by Lee. He and Carlton balance each other out beautifully.
My family likes to renovate homes. You may already know that! We’re low on actual homes, so it became time to renovate the rolling home, Seneca the Motorhome. Lee had a plan to make himself a rolling home office.
Hey, where’s the dinette?
We hardly ever use the dinette that converts to a bed fit only for children. So, the men of the house got to work. It wasn’t too hard to get anything out except the seat belts. Those were in really well, which was a good thing when I was riding in there.
It’s not a table now, it’s a desk!
They unbolted the dining table and put it up the correct height to be a desk. They had to put it next to the couch, because that’s where electrical outlets are. I think it’s a good spot.
Spacious!
I like that you can more easily get to the bathroom when the slide outs are closed. And a person could watch television and work, as long as that person isn’t Lee. He needs to concentrate. He’s ordered a desk chair that will look good, and there will be tie-downs to keep the chair secure when we’re on the road.
I ordered a nice little vacuum cleaner for all the past and no doubt future mouse turds. It didn’t help that dog food was lodged under the dinette! All in all, I’m looking forward to our next outing.
The Bull Part
This started my day off right Sunday. I headed out to feed the chickens and check on the horses and noticed the horses were all near the pens, not out grazing. They do that sometimes, so it wasn’t a big deal. Then I realized something was amiss.
I don’t own a huge, black horse.
Hmm. Droodles and Apache were in the bull’s pasture and Haggard was relaxing in a horse pen. Interesting.
We like having him around.
I was briefly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to set them back to not, but as the photo hints, the horses came back to be petted as soon as they saw me. Then Haggard just got up and sauntered back where he belonged.
Fiona wouldn’t come back, so she was stuck on the other side once I re-shut the gate (which some equine must have opened). By the time I came back to ride horses, she was braying to come back. No bull!
In Conclusion
It was just a nice day yesterday. It ended with a big family dinner including the whole gang, for once. Vlassic enjoyed that we were all outside a lot. It was too nice to stay inside! We Texans treasure pleasant weather whenever it shows up.
Martha and Vlassic had a lot of catching up to do.
Today is so beautiful I just had to go out and enjoy it. Just gazing across the fields and watching butterflies flitting among the flowers lowered my blood pressure. The Hermits’ Rest is beautiful this time of year.
Indian paintbrush glory
I’m still carefully taking photos of each new plant that starts blooming. Each new one makes me smile, no matter how familiar they are. I love watching the year progress. Here are some new arrivals.
Texas vervain, a favorite White sport of blue-eyed grassRoadside gauraCut-leaf evening primrose Not new, but gorgeous toadflax My beloved Venus’s looking glassNot new, but cute bluebonnet and ladybug Plant I can’t identify. Drives me crazy.
The day was so nice I decided to groom whatever horse showed up. Dusty won the prize and got a nice de-shedding. He’s almost finished shedding and is looking shiny. Even his poor little mane is growing in, and his Drew bites are healing. They still play a LOT.
After he was all pretty, we went for a nice walk/graze. He had fun and got some big clumps of grass taken care of. I exercised him by having him walk over poles. He then helped out by cleaning up around them.
Doing his job.
Things have really improved since last week! The magnesium supplements seem to have helped the riding horses settle down, too. Drew especially seems more focused.
I feel better.
I wish I felt better. The toes are not getting better, so riding hurts. I can’t even wear my excellent new shiny flip flops. I’m glad my Skechers flip flops don’t make them hurt much.
Dang. I like these.
Lucky for me my nails are good. I can make them as gaudy as I want to. I put a “jelly” layer over cute little flowers. Then I stuck shiny stuff on there. Hey, everyone needs a hobby.
First off, I have NO idea where yesterday’s whiny-ass post came from. Of course I know there are many good things in my life and people who like me. I was just thinking about other things.
I needed clarity
The week is still weird. I mis-remembered when my appointment in Austin was, so I rushed to feed the horses quickly. Of COURSE they decided it wasn’t time to eat yet and took forever to get there to eat. At least no one escaped.
They were only marginally faster than this little guy I saw on the way to the small pond.
I did get a little time to pull some weeds and enjoy the sunshine and nice temperatures, briefly. I got to pull some “bastard cabbage,” too. I have to leave our property to get much, though, because I’ve mostly eradicated it.
Not eradicated: June bugs. It’s March. They just know I want to swim.
Things are looking up. I finally made it to the eye doctor today, after postponing a couple appointments due to horse events. I found out our eye doctor is going camping with us and other friends next month. Yay. And I had so much fun picking frames with my favorite employee there. She knows just what I like. I did order a pair that are different from what I usually get. They have wire rims!
Sneak peek
After overdosing on cool frames, I got to enjoy a delicious Italian dinner with two of our former Bobcat neighbors and we filled each other in on news we don’t put on social media. Ah, I love in-person meetups. They fill me with positive energy.
Of course, I invited everyone I saw today to come stay at the vacation rental. More in person meetings to come, I hope.
I ordered new computer glasses, too, since they have a new way of doing them. These are so pretty I just want to look at them.
Things are looking up in other ways. This weekend promises to be fun and full of good stuff. I’m reminded of how grateful I am for people who are kind and care. See, I can be positive!
The Hermits' Rest 