volunteer work – The Hermits' Rest

Back Online and Succeeding in the Saddle

I wasn’t able to blog last night, because a storm came through and knocked out cell reception for most of the area. My phone kept saying SOS and I told it to calm down, the towers would return. I sure am having the Internet issues! But indeed, I got to enjoy the cool clouds.

This photo by Lee makes it look like the pool house is about to be swept up and deposited in Oz.

It looked like tornado weather, and indeed, it was. Friends had a brand-new shed hit by a small one. It missed their house, though, so it could have been much worse. It’s hard to get used to so many scary weather events so close together, though.

We managed to get through the storm just fine. It was a very fast one! When I woke up this morning, there was more weather news. Tarrin contacted all of us who were signed up for a clinic at her ranch to let us know there were going to be very strong winds today. She let us know we could put it off.

If you try to put me on a trailer, I’ll bop you on the head.

We all said we’d just show up and hope for the best, much to Apache’s disappointment. He was not at all interested in going anywhere or doing anything this morning and kept bopping me with his head until I had to get firmer than usual with him. I managed to get most of the mud off him, including huge globs nested in the base of his mane. Not the most fun start to a day, but I’m happy to report that the rest of the day was a lot better!

I saw so many flowers that I had to be cheerful! This meadow pink certainly is pink.

He is always happy to go to Tarrin’s, and he got to head over with his buddy Aragorn. Sara drove today, and we always have a good time together. I ended up in a great mood all day, myself, and enjoyed meeting some new folks and their horses. There are some real success stories in the latest bunch of training horses!

After relaxing for a while in his luxurious (in his mind) stall, Apache came out to do our part of the clinic with me, and he was an absolute dream. We started out learning the newest dressage pattern that we’ll use in the next shows. We did it really slowly, stopping between each section, to help the horses pay attention to our cues. I enjoyed doing it as well as watching the other two riders in my group, one of whom was just starting out on her horse after training.

It was a great feeling to know that we’ve come far enough along to be role models of calmness as things blew around and spooked other horses. Tarrin made sure to share that it wasn’t all that long ago that Apache was nerved out at lots of random things. Meanwhile, he nearly fell asleep when it wasn’t his turn, even when something blew by and hit his leg. What a guy? Yeah!

The second part of our session was learning to do small circles precisely and teach the horses to pay attention to us rather than memorizing a pattern and blasting through it. That was a lot of fun for us, especially when we got to trot it. Apache and I have really made some improvement, and I was so happy to try these new things and refine how we do them. So much learning!

After our turn, we had an educational session where Tarrin showed us what a horse with severe hoof issues looked like on the inside. Camina the dog really wanted to eat that demo horse leg. It’s really cool that a horse can contribute to education after it has to be put down. It’s like they live on.

Another thing we did was each of us stood on two scales and had to practice balancing so that each scale read the same. This was not at all easy. We also found that slight shifts of our hips made the scales move many pounds. What this demonstrated was that our shifts can really affect our horses, and also that their shifts can also affect their performance.

The folks in the last, most advanced, group in the clinic focused on this balance and helping their horses get not only straight but balanced before doing activities like beginning a canter from a stop.

Now, this annoyed each of the horses as far as I could tell, but it was fascinating to watching both horses and riders learning to refine their balance.

Then they all cantered around those barrels we trotted around. Wow, some of those horses are beautifully trained. Aragorn did a great job as well, even though he’s just learning. Sara loves this photo I took of them together.

Of course, since it’s City Nature Challenge weekend, I snuck off to take photos of the plants and insects at Tarrin’s. I saw so many butterflies, and a gorgeous scarab beetle that visited my jacket. The ladies I was sitting with were fascinated with me looking at it, photographing it, and figuring out what it was.

The only negative was that I keep touching plants and really should check to see if they are nettles BEFORE touching them. Ow. There were also some very spiky trees that are either Hercules Club or Spiny Ash.

It was a really fun day for all of us, even the horses. We didn’t let that awful chilly wind slow us down!

I got to hold this giant draft horse’s lead rope and pet him. He’s shy.

Sara and I spent much time when we got home telling our horses how proud we are of them. These are the times to remember when things get challenging again!

Sara is telling Aragorn how pleased she is with him.

So Many Tasks, So Little Internet

It’s good to be home after a fun few days. Many family members were glad to see me and Lee.

Other residents were not so glad.

Excuse me. Why are you barging into our baby bird and poop production area?

Horses were also glad, and I was relieved to find Apache semi-clean after big rain. Drew, on the other hand, has mud dreadlocks that I’ll wait until tomorrow to fix. They at least got their exercise and food.

It rained a lot. You can see how high the water got. Our backup culvert got used for the first time in over a year.

Luckily, the ranch didn’t get struck by lightning or hailed on. Just rain. I guess if lightning struck, it couldn’t break my internet access any more than it already is. Sigh.

Good news: black-eyed susans are in bloom.

I came home with a big to-do list, most of it involving accessing websites. I had four or five Master Naturalist blogs, two horse shows to register for, weather data to look up, etc. Too bad for me. I believe I’ve used up my personal hotspot bandwidth. I got one short Master Naturalist blog up after 45 minutes.

And every flower seems to have its own lynx spider!

The to-do list did contain some non-internet tasks, so I got them all done. At least I have rainbow nails ready for the work week, which I guess will start off at the Red House, until I get that router fixed.

Super Fun Nature Time at Mother Neff Park

I’ve been sorta down about nature and her ways, so I haven’t been writing much (I’ll talk about it eventually). But today’s Master Naturalist field trip to Mother Neff State Park gave me so many hours of fun that I must share!

Some of our group at the park headquarters.

We carpooled, and I was impressed to fit five people in my new car successfully. It’s hard to feel down with my Master Naturalist lady friends. I just love all the stories about Cameron, Rockdale, and people I never heard of before but wish I could have known. We ended up with a good sized group for a walk on the trails with a nice young intern.

I have to admit that I was not a very good participant in the guided walk. My partner in crime, Linda Jo, and I could not keep ourselves from stopping every few steps to look at plants or insects. That was way more interesting to us than the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or whatever. When you are with the iNaturalist Queen, you make observations, so I did!

Linda Jo and I had an absolute BLAST looking at all the plants we found. Between the two of us, we found interesting new-to-us plants and some rare things. It’s so much better doing this stuff with others, as I learned on that warbler walk a couple of weeks ago. Linda Jo said I made a great spotter.

We did enjoy some of the interesting spots along the trail, of course. There was a lovely pond, a big cave, and a tower built by the CCC. A lot of climbing up and down was involved, so we got tired, but it was “a good kind of tired.” I’m glad to have gone, since we missed all this part of the park when Lee and I were there before.

I did want to see the trail we walked last time, around Christmas, but everyone was tired. So, Linda Jo and I just walked a little bit of it. We didn’t need to go far to find all sorts of interesting plants. We were like little kids at Christmas, just about giddy with all our findings. I found a most gorgeous milkweed that neither of us had ever seen before, star milkweed. Then we found some phlox I’d never seen before, golden-eyed phlox. and there was yet another kind of paintbrush!

And there was more. The other folks said they could hear us calling out to each other when we found something. I can’t imagine having a better time doing something I love!

After I reluctantly let the others leave, we had even more fun at lunch, when we went to a very good restaurant on Lake Belton (Dead Fish Grill?). It was quite big, and we were able to eat outside but under cover. All the food looked good, as was my rainbow trout.

There were a few little incidents, but for the most part, everyone had a blast and learned a great deal. My only complaint is I got home too late to ride horses. That’s really not the end of the world, because tomorrow will be another beautiful day, just like today was.

That’s a yellow crescent blister beetle.

I’m so glad to have a community of like-minded folks to hang out with on occasion!

I’d Do It for Free

What job would you do for free?

…a job, that is. This blog prompt is probably too easy, since I’ve done a LOT of volunteer work, some of it hard and thankless. My favorite one, though, has always been reaching people to knit and crochet.

I have no photo to go with this, so here’s banana pecan bread I made.

I loved it so much that I taught at a yarn shop way longer than I should have. I did get paid some, but mostly I did it because it’s so cool to take someone who’s never held a needle or hook and a couple of hours later end up with someone who has a new lifetime hobby. You’re never bored if you have a project.

You’re also never bored if you like weeds…err…wildflowers

Now, at the same time, I want to assure you that I believe teaching these skills is worth paying for and that professional knitting and crochet teachers deserve to be compensated. I happily spend money learning new skills from amazing and creative folks.

I’m not sure if blogging is a “job,” but I do know folks who make lots of money doing it. For me it’s a practice, not a job, so I’m happy to blog for free. Writing is so important in my life that I just have to do it, and I enjoy sharing what I write with a few folks to exchange thoughts with.

Enough of jobs I’d do for free. I guess if I retire my job will be to keep learning and growing. It’ll probably cost me, not earn money, but that’s ok. I just hope I can afford to keep the horses!

It finally stopped raining, but wow is it muddy. So, no horse riding happened. I was able to set up for the stuff I’d hoped to do all week, though. And I played with the chickens, down to seven, sniff. They got to go out and forage a bit.

Billie Idyll was laying an egg. I’ll miss Betty.

They were all out at the horse pens, but when I called them, they ran with those little children legs and followed me into the chicken run for a treat. That’s more responsive than certain horses.

I’m glad for a day where I could be out with the plants and bugs, knit on my blanket, and hang out with the family. Plus, we have a guest, so I got to leave the house and eat at a restaurant! Woo.

Here are random photos from the last two days. It’s been wet, but relaxing!

Golden-Cheeked Warbler? Yes!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apparently I found a rare plant for this area, a Western Rick jasmine. It was one of many that I’d never seen before.

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.

Here are some more things I observed today. This was a most interesting place!

I’m weird

What is one word that describes you?

This question made me smile. I’ve felt weird my whole life. I made up a club called the Weird Happys (sic.) in middle school and invited all my interesting, smart, non-traditional friends to join.

I’m a weird donkey who escaped after dinner.

I’ve always been weird, non-standard and rather off center. That’s never been a problem except when I wanted someone I found fascinating and atypical to be my friend, but it turned out I wasn’t their kind of weird. Trying to fit in NEVER has worked. I eventually wear out my welcome and am shown the door. Like:

My previous job
My church (was informed I no longer fit their demographic because I liked small, community oriented congregations)
The animal welfare group I helped found (those of you who know, know why)
La Leche League (turns out I’m not a good cult candidate)
The yarn shop friends where I used to teach knitting and crochet (some individuals are still friendly, though)
My book group (they ghosted me!)
My marriage to my kids’ dad
Etc.

I felt bad about these things at the time, but now I realize I don’t need to put my weirdness where it bothers others. I have choices, and it’s better to be true to myself than to try to fit in.

These guys just deal with my weirdness because they have no choice. Awww.

Anyway, my word is weird, and I’m happy now. I’ll enjoy the communities I have now while I can, and move on gracefully when it becomes apparent that I’m not a good fit.

I’ll be as graceful as blue-eyed grass, which appeared this week.

But hey, I still feel accepted by most people in my Master Naturalist group (I don’t expect them to all love me, just to work together). And I’m doing okay in the little horse community I’ve found myself in, thanks to us all loving horses! That’s plenty of folks to be weird around.

I am glad folks accept that I get frustrated when I can’t ID a plant.

Plus, my hobbies and family keep me happy and centered. I can be a Weird Happy!

All Dressed Up

It feels weird to do normal fun stuff like go to a Christmas party (that’s what they call them here, since it’s pretty mono-cultural).

I’m tired, though. I now have energy again, so I want do DO things, but I still don’t have stamina. Just running Drew through a couple of practice obstacles and setting up the trailer for a horse show tomorrow had my heart pounding. Oops.

I may have to walk all my events tomorrow. But I’ll give it a try. I’ll think positive.

Or I could just crawl into my hole and rest, like Goldie.

Today was crazy at work because so many people asked me questions. They keep finding me on the intranet and contacting me. I even answered a question from a woman on another part of Dell on software I had never seen. Dang I’m a good trainer!

But it makes me want to hide, like Carlton.

The evening was nice, and it featured our Master Naturalist party, as mentioned above. It warmed my heart to see two women I admire get volunteer hour achievement awards, and some other hard-working volunteers receive recognition from the group. Our chapter president has had some great ideas, including these recognitions.

My friends Don, Lisa, Donna, and Linda Jo. Super volunteers.

I’m a bit of an outsider, but that did not stop me from enjoying the warm community of these nature lovers. Watching them interact was so much fun. I’m glad I have this connection to my rural county and that I’ve made kind friends there. Here are many of them making gestures.

And yeah. I enjoyed wearing clothing that wasn’t horse stuff. I’ll put those on tomorrow!

Phyllis and I put on headgear to complement our ensembles

Master Naturalist Meeting Notes 2: Saturday, October 22

Although I’m quite excited about migrating snout butterflies (hundreds) and sandhill cranes (dozens), I’ll share more that I learned last Saturday for now.

Insect Photography, by Mary Ann Melton

Insects are what I take photos of most, after plants. I enjoyed getting ideas from Mary Ann, who happened to be the speaker at our last Chapter Meeting. I was very happy that she gave tips for phone photos as well as camera ones.

I took photos of some of the ideas she shared, especially for digital cameras, in case I can ever get one. There was also a cool attachment that lets you take better close ups on the phone. Attaching that to the 3x camera on my phone should be fun to try.

I also just enjoyed her beautiful photos with nice blurry backgrounds so the subjects look better. This was fun.

Here Be Dragons! Odonata 101, by Brent Franklin

This was probably Brent’s first presentation, since he apologized a lot for its length and content. But it was just fine, and I learned a lot about dragonflies and damselflies, even though I thought I knew a lot. This guy has really seen a LOT of the Texas Odonata and has lots of insights on finding them and observing them.

He had some fantastic photos of various dragonflies, too. I learned more about their mating behavior (the male clamps on to the female behind her head and flies her around until they find a good egg-laying place) and life when young. I don’t think I’d realized how long they can live in the water before emerging into the air. It can be years!

There’s just so much going on with these guys. Did you know dragonfly eyes take up almost their whole head, while damselfly eyes are on stalks on the sides of their heads? Yep.

Sticking their back ends straight up is called obelisking. That’s a new word for me.

iNaturalist 301: Advanced Applications and Exploring Data in iNaturalist, by Tania Homayoun

I always feel like it’s not a good conference if I don’t go to a session by Tania. I think I’ve gone on a field trip with her or heard her speak at every conference I attended. I’m such a rogue iNat user that I don’t think she’s too impressed by me, but I’m impressed by her! This session didn’t disappoint, as I learned some new features in iNaturalist and that some features have gone away. I’m glad I was able to draw an area for our ranch before that was removed as an option because people were misusing it or something.

My latest iNat entry taken in glary sunlight. I think it’s a camelback cricket.

Since I’d spent all week uploading things for that Pollinator BioBlitz, it was good to just talk about it and to learn more about the computer application, which really lets you do useful things. I plan to download my ranch observation data soon and do some analysis in Excel.

I was sad to find out that Tania is leaving her position with Texas Nature Trackers, but very happy to discover it’s because she is going to be the State Ornithologist! WOW!

Wrens: Little Birds with Lots of Energy, by Scott Kiester

It turns out that the speaker for this session, the last one I attended, is the guy who drove us to the field trip on Thursday. He had lots and lots and lots of information on wrens, including fun recordings of the songs and “scolding calls” of each type.

Wren fact that blew my mind: there is only ONE kind of wren in the Old World, and they are pretty sure it crossed the Bering Strait and populated that part of the world from North America. There are many kinds of wrens here, though. We went through most of them in two hours, it seemed.

We also learned folk tales. The wren won kingship by hitchhiking on an eagle and jumping off it to become the highest flyer. Tricky bird.

I have a much better clue about wren identification now, and can easily tell you which one is a Bewick’s. By the way, their numbers are diminishing as some other wren takes over, and it’s pronounced like the Buick car. Huh.

The rest of the sessions on Saturday were about who won awards and honoring people with lots of volunteer hours. I sure wish Donna Lewis had been able to come so she could have received her 10,000 hour pin. That is a huge milestone. To compare, I have about 800 hours.

I’m sticking my crane photos and video from yesterday in here, in case you’re interested. Seeing them flying over is always a highlight of the autumn for me. I love the sounds they make.

Sandhill cranes on the move

Master Naturalist Meeting Notes: Friday, October 21

I promised to write up notes from the sessions I took at the 2022 Annual Meeting of Texas Master Naturalist, but there was a lot of stuff going on the last couple of days. Now I have a moment! First, I will say that this was the best conference I attended so far in terms of the quality of the sessions I attended. They were chock-full of interesting tidbits. It also helped that the Omni Houston has comfortable chairs. I wasn’t squirming the whole time, except in the one session where I had to sit on the floor. Anyway, here are some notes!

The main meeting room with interesting centerpieces made out of books

Becoming a Land Doctor: Evaluating Land Health, by Megan Clayton

The speaker here had also spoken at the Bennett Trust conference, so it was good to hear her information again. She talked about how to tell if your land was over-grazed, whether it had lost its topsoil, etc. It takes thousands of years to rebuild topsoil if it’s removed.

Grass is your friend if you want healthy land! But you need to let it grow back before grazing again. The ideal would be to imitate bison, who showed up, ate, pooped, and trampled once a year, then moved on.

I found out the speaker does these fun webinars that I will try to attend

Fire and Goats: Vegetation Management Using Traditional Techniques in a Novel Setting, by Stephen Benigno

This one was a lot of fun. The speaker is from the Houston Arboretum, and he shared how they used a flock of goats from “Rent a Ruminant” — what a great name. The goats really took care of the underbrush. They just took a week and we’re great at gnawing down dewberries.

This gave me many ideas, so I had questions about fencing and such. Having just a few goats and rotating them sounds good!

He also talked about doing a controlled burn at the arboretum. That required lots of permission and publicity to keep people calm about the smoke. It worked out well but didn’t quite burn as much of the meadow as they wanted. All learning experiences in an urban woods and prairie!

No photos from this session, so here’s a beautiful Polyphemous moth that was on a window at the hotel.

Birding with Today’s Technology: Utilizing eBird, Merlin, and Other Online Resources, by Kelsey Biles

I took this one to learn more about eBird. It was worth it just to learn about how you can ID birds just by sound using it. So, if you don’t know, this is software that lets you identify birds and save your sightings online, all going to science. You don’t need photos, and it’s easier for folks who aren’t great with online image stuff. Many people I know contribute to it daily by just watching their feeders.

There was a lot to learn, though, so I was glad to be there. Plus the speaker had a very cute bird skirt on.

Conservation of the Night, by Cindy Luongo-Cassidy of the Dark Sky Network

This was the lunch speaker. She got us all fired up about eliminating light pollution and keeping the dark sky available for people, animals, and plant life. We all need it. I learned how to modify light fixtures to direct light downward rather than outward from simple things you might have on your property.

I feel pretty good about our place. We have a couple of rogue lights, but most of them stay off unless needed, which is a good practice. I don’t want to confuse moths and migrating birds, after all!

Speaking of the dark, we sure enjoyed the darkness of the whiskey bar at the hotel later in the evening.

Feral Hog Biology and Impacts: What We Know and What We Hope to Learn, by Mikayla Killam

This one was pretty depressing to me. It sure is hard to get rid of feral hogs. I did learn a few trapping techniques that aim to get as many hogs as possible into traps, like using funnel feeders and trip wires at the furthest end of the traps.

Of course, hogs are very smart and figure many kinds of traps out, as we know. The speaker recommended that the best way to remove the greatest numbers of these invasive animals all at once is to hire professionals in helicopters to get as many as possible, and to go in with as many neighbors as possible, since hogs don’t know land boundaries. Once that is all done, you can then more easily pick off individuals by trapping or shooting.

I discovered this lovely nest for the hotel’s black swan pair. Cygnet making is preferable to piglet making.

I learned that if you just get some of them, they go into piglet-making overdrive to get their numbers up. There’s a scientific word for it that I forgot.

Living in Harmony with America’s Song Dog, by Karin and Roberto Saucedo

My last educational session for the day was very popular. The presenters are a couple who really love coyotes and have studied them extensively in urban environments. I had to sit on the floor for this one, but it was kinda fun.

We learned how the coyotes interact with human habitation, which is often caused by houses being built around their traditional territories. We saw how they helped some of the coyotes get over mange by putting out medication for them. They knew not to get too friendly with them and showed a sad video they made about a coyote that people kept feeding even when asked not to (and even when they knew game cams were set up that would catch them). Sure enough, being tame was its downfall.

A lot of the coyote stories were sad. But an interesting thing I was reminded of in this talk was that in parts of Texas there is a lot of red wolf blood in them, which makes them a bit larger. I think that is true here, as ours are often quite large and healthy (I don’t see ones with mange out here, but they also are wilder and avoid people and our dogs).

Keynote: Kjell Lindgren, Astronaut

The last talk of the day was the dinner speaker. It started out with some Texas Parks and Wildlife or AgriLife official talking about how cool it was that a Master Naturalist spent time on the space station recently. They showed some photos and a nice message he’d recorded for us about how being a Master Naturalist had helped him in his work. We were all happy with that, but then they surprised us with Kjell, the astronaut, coming onstage and talking to us in person.

This is one impressive fellow with an MD, a PhD, and a degree from the Air Force Institute or whatever that is in Colorado Springs. And of course, he’s a Boy Scout leader and such. He seems genuinely nice, kind, and humble, too. My favorite part of his talk was all the photos he shared of the earth as seen from the space station. The auroras, the volcanoes, the rivers, etc., were fascinating to look at.

I have to say, though, that Friday’s sessions were a LOT of learning all in one day. I’m glad we got to go relax afterward in the lovely bar. The hotel had great restaurants and bars. No complaints about that!

Tromping

Whew, I was tired by the time I got home from Fredericksburg. I went home a new way, though, so I got to see some different scenery and avoid Austin traffic. To keep myself awake I tromped around the ranch on my breaks, taking pictures for the pollinator BioBlitz.

I especially enjoyed our remaining water areas. I spotted lots of fish in here.

I just wandered and wandered, bearing in mind what I learned at the conference this week. I noted there were more fish where there was no cow poop, but there were fish even in what’s left of the creek, where I found one of the old mama cows having a quiet bath.

As I checked out the riparian areas, I also looked at the pastures. Yeah, they are rather over-grazed. The only plants left are what cattle don’t eat: broomweed, milkweed, and silverleaf nightshade. This made finding things to add to the BioBlitz a challenge.

I did find lots of insects and documented every tree variety, so I feel good. My goal is to ID 100 species as my contribution, and I think if I get some at Tarrin’s, where there are different plants, I’ll pass that goal. I did hit another goal today, and that’s 600 different species here on the ranch. Hard to believe!

Even if all I see is cedar elms and greenbrier, I can’t complain. Being able to get outside is such a privilege. The variety of life that’s still thriving in this drought gives me hope for us tenacious humans, too.