volunteer work – The Hermits' Rest

Pollinators, trees, bagpipes and more

Lots of surprises and fun filled the last full day of the 2026 Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting. I was rested enough to get through the whole day, but not enough for after-session activities. Believe me, the day was full!

It was great to see Craig Hensley, who retired last year, come back to present a very interesting session on the best plants to attract pollinators and who those pollinators are likely to be. I learned so much about how beetles, bees, wasps, and of course butterflies/moths pollinate plants. He had nifty data, too. I know what I’ll be planting!

The next session I attended was on the Heritage Trees of McClennan County. It was led by an impressive young Mexican American man who is both an arborist and a firefighter. We learned about this program to save local trees, then went on a field trip just down the road to see a few of them.

We visited the St Francis Oak, near a historic church and learned that it’s in the middle of a future road. Hector explained options for saving or preserving its heritage. I took a few acorns.

On the way back to the convention center, I took pictures of every plant I could find for the Pollinator Bioblitz. Might as well kill two birds with one stone (though I am not a bird killer). There were no exciting discoveries along the urban sidewalks.

Lunch was good but they ran out of pasta and carrots. The servers were all very nice, though. Afterwards, I went to a session on who should care for wildlife. I got distracted because he used speech to text and it was really bad. He’s trying to be accommodating but I don’t think a hearing impaired person would have been able to figure out what the talk was about due to mistakes. Mike said it’s free software, so you get what you pay for.

I got no photos in that session, so here’s me with a lunch flower in my hair.

Onward to more learning. A session on techniques for nature photography, especially film, was really good. I learned lots of techniques to use in the future. The speaker has had a long and interesting career in television and film, including the television show for Texas Parks and Wildlife. Now he takes all our official photos, too.

Lee showing us how agile you need to be to get good nature shots.

I really didn’t care about his content too much, because I enjoyed the film clips he shared of ducks, cranes, deer, snakes (one drinking, so cool), and bats. His examples were so helpful!

Some of our group went over to the Hilton bar to relax before dinner and enjoyed listening to bagpipes and drums rehearsing down the hall. They were part of a group of firefighters and I think police from around the state that performs at funerals and other ceremonies. They were giving seminars to other groups or something.

We were delighted to be surprised by a performance by the group before dinner! They’d agreed to do it on the spur of the moment when asked by our leadership. It was so good. All the flourishes and pageantry made me quite emotional.

I managed to film a bit of them marching out. So much dedication it must take to learn all this, and how good of them to honor the fallen.

To continue the night on a high note, the food was good tonight and there was plenty. We even got a few group photos.

The best part of the evening was when they announced milestones for members. It was a true joy to see the reaction our Linda Jo got when it was announced she’d achieved 10,000 hours of volunteer service. I hope all the love made her very happy. Mike and Dr Rector escorted her back to her seat, which was so cute!

She photographed Lee, the official photographer

To see someone I admire so much get well deserved recognition was the highlight of the whole event for me!

To those of you who get the blog by mail, I apologize that some text was missing. I’m not sure how it happened, but the online version has been corrected.

Lots to learn as long as you’re awake

I’ve been enjoying the Texas Master Naturalist 2026 Annual Meeting for the most part. I learned many things that will stick with me. That’s a bonus.

Yesterday I attended a pre-conference session on efforts to mitigate future flooding and restore the Guadalupe River after last year’s horrific July flood. I now know so much more about how to deal with flood damage in ways that will help rivers heal themselves. For example, “trash” plants like sycamores and poverty weed that grow up after flooding are helping stabilize soil so important plants like cypress can establish themselves. I admit I got sad and had to leave after two hours, and spent time with friends.

The opening reception was at the Mayborn Museum on the Baylor University campus, which is sparkling clean and full of fancy buildings thanks to wealthy Baptists. The museum admitted that fossils are old, which was a relief. We enjoyed the exhibits very much, though the cold hamburger didn’t thrill me. My favorite parts were the Native American buildings and the wildlife.

Afterward, we retired to the bar at our hotel, and sat on the pleasant courtyard (by Mariott). Our buddy Mike Mitchell joined us as did the guy who was supposed to be playing music at the bar. He turned out to be a pathological liar, but his stories were so far-fetched that we kept listening to him. He was partially raised by JHW Bush and once owned a nuclear home. Examples. I hit a limit and left my friends to start asking him hard questions.

I had a hard time sleeping again last night which never bodes well for attending conferences. But I got through my morning session on iNaturalist data and how it correlates diversity data. It was led by a quirky fellow who made things hard to follow but was so unique and interesting that it was ok. He sure loved data. Here are some interesting tidbits.

Lunch was undercooked baked potatoes. We had to stand in long lines and they kept running out of toppings and such. No one was happy. It was freezing in the room. We did smile.

I was most interested in the next session, on digital photography. It was good, and the room was warm. Unfortunately, that warmth right after lunch put me to sleep. I’m very grateful that the presenter shared his notes online so I can read them. So embarrassing. I went back to my room and crashed.

I spent some time in the exhibit hall and bought a nice loupe that will be fun on hikes. Then, boom, it was time to eat again. The dinner was better and included edible chicken, cold broccolini, and really good crawfish empanadas. However, it was cold. We made it through a sad movie about the flooding last year and a few speakers but had to flee. Even with my new cuddly jacket I was cold.

We (minus Liz and Jackie) went to the Hilton bar, where we met a perfectly nice man from north Austin and a friendly woman, both Master Naturalists. Of course we also were with Mike M. We had very pleasant conversations. It was good to see the finished renovations after staying there in the midst of the work earlier this year.

My hope is to stay awake tomorrow. I may need caffeine.

Blitzing the biology

I’ve continued making observations for the 2026 Texas Pollinator Bioblitz this weekend. It’s like I went camping, only I stayed home, with all the walking, stalking and talking? No talking. I just took pictures but that does not rhyme.

I even climbed a hill, the only one around here.

After the incredibly windy day Friday, it was more pleasant to go look for pollinators and the plants they pollinate this weekend. But the wind had bashed a lot of the few plants that should still be blooming. For example, I’d really looked forward to getting pictures of Snow on the Mountain on my walk today, but I had a hard time finding any whose flowers hadn’t blown off.

Anyway, I’m doing okay finding things to contribute. Right now I (Sunasak) look like quite the little blitzer. However, the real hardcore participants include Texas Parks and Wildlife staff and people with good cameras who need to process their images. By the end, I’ll be more in the center.

Anyway, at least it’s gotten me out of the house. The only other stuff I’ve done is feed various animals. Spice messed up the water trough AGAIN and the rest of the horses have found the cockleburs. Apache feels it’s his duty to take over from Drew, so he requires daily work. I don’t think he minds the added attention!

The number of butterflies I’ve seen is larger than I expected. The Gulf Fritillary family is still busy laying eggs on passion vines, so they were easy to get good photos of.

There are many tiny Ceraunus Blue butterflies yesterday, but a good number of others, too.

Of course, butterflies aren’t the only pollinators. I found plenty of bees, wasps, and other insects (which may or may not be pollinators).

I did find a good number of plants, but not many great plant photos. This is not a good time of year for pretty plant images. It’s a good thing I know what a lot of plants look like when they’ve gone to seed!

I also have to report on birds, even if they aren’t part of the Bioblitz. On Friday, with all that wind, I only had 11 species, but it was a bit better yesterday with the arrival of much cooler weather and my little buddies the White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows. Today has been quite good, with over 40 species so far (I’m writing in the early evening). The best part is that I got some photos, including a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that Merlin didn’t register.

I’ll spare you the dog adventures this weekend. They were sort of unpleasant, but in the end, they’re all fine. I hope you are, too, or at least heading that way.

A quick hey…hay

Gotta go to bed soon—today was long! The best part was spending time with the horses while they got their feet trimmed. Everyone is so calm and well behaved. Even Mabel has settled into a well behaved routine after a rough start when she got here.

The only photos I took were of Apache, who really seemed to enjoy his trim. He dozed a bit, then did a lot of licking and chewing when it came to his hind legs.

He still has those platter feet, but they are sound and pretty, for him.

I wish I’d gotten before and after pictures of poor Fiona. I noticed she was walking strangely, so I had the farrier take a look, dreading founder or thrush or an abscess. Nope. She had mud clumped in her hoof so thick that it stuck out past her hoof. Only Fiona! She’s all fixed up now, after a little soreness after the hoof was cleaned. She’s the sweetest little thing.

These guys made my morning! And a fun Master Naturalist meeting completed the day. I learned fascinating information about re-introducing horned lizards near Mason, Texas. I also learned interesting fire ant control techniques and about Houston toad reintroduction in Bastrop. The speaker is a local guy who’s a great speaker and researcher.

People can be rejuvenating

If you’ve read my writing before, you’ve probably realized I’ve gotten more like the hermit in our ranch name as time goes on. I get pretty drained in crowds nowadays, even Master Naturalist meetings. (Yet I am going to a convention soon, which I may regret.)

However, one-on-one interactions lift my spirits so much! Today I had many opportunities for good conversation. I’m thankful to all!

I’m even grateful for this large bold jumping spider who entertained us this morning.

This morning I spent a good while talking about some complicated stuff with Kathleen over our morning coffee, but soon the topics veered off into what an odd little family dynamic we have over here at the compound. For example, we keep repaying each other similar amounts of money, so it’s just floating around in circles. Much laughter ensued. Penney also found it funny.

Next, Terry the farrier came to trim the horses and Fiona. We had good conversation with him, too. I enjoy learning his stories of his interesting life and his own odd happenings, like someone just giving him a Jeep. He also found a weird thing growing on Spice, near her tests. Our guess is that it’s a skin tag or little melanoma. I need to find someone knowledgeable to look at it.

After a nice, quiet afternoon of work, Terri from Master Naturalists came over to get a blog software refresher so she can help on the Master Naturalist blog. We are supposed to have a backup for all our roles. We fed the horses, looked at all the ponds and outbuildings, and yes, practiced blogging. I tried to explain our family arrangements here, and once again realized how weird it sounds when you say it out loud. I enjoyed her stories of living on a sailboat with young children, too.

I know I share a lot of egrets. But they are so beautiful.

It was a very pleasant time with no deadlines or big agenda. The whole day was like that. Very little negativity and much supportive interaction. I wish you similar days!

Geez. I care about my phone.

What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

Why do I hold my phone dear? It is my memory. It contains all my photos, all my communication with friends, access to my memories in the blog…and yes, I can get to all those things from my laptop. Yuck. I think I hold some bits and bytes or whatever cloud storage is made of. That’s really depressing. What else do I hold dear? Things made by my loved ones. My mom and stepmom’s art. Dad’s woodcraft stuff. Gifts they gave me. Things that tie me to them.

New thought: I’ve started letting myself write in incomplete sentences! They’ll soon be taking away my Grammar Police badge. My take is that the incomplete sentences are not as unpleasant as those two blogs I dictated and then was too woozy to properly review. Poor Sue had to endure proofreading that. I don’t pay her well enough for that! (I do not pay Sue; she’s just nice.)

Another part of the phone I love is the camera. I was at a Master Naturalist outing at my friend Carolyn’s place, which I’ve showed you before. I got some images I really liked there. I don’t need to show you all 125 species or 25 birds I recorded, but I want to share a few for those of you who always want more nature pictures.

Purple Pleatleaf (***Alophia drummondii)***

This one was new to me. It’s an evening primrose that grows five feet tall. Wow.

Four point evening primrose (***Oenothera rhombipetala)***

And here are a few more plants.

We also saw lots of animal life. There was more than I expected, especially the suspiciously friendly raccoon. But it’s harmless.

Other animal news? No one’s come looking for Benny. He’s still over here trying to hump Carlton.

Slept a Lot. No Better.

While over-the-counter pain meds enabled me to get through the day, the antibiotics haven’t put a dent in my throat pain. I got the news that my thyroid is fine. Of course that’s good news, but that leaves me back not knowing what the heck is wrong. I’m very impatient with illness.

I did get outside to check the mail and saw lemon beebalm starting to bloom.

At least I didn’t miss horse stuff, since there was light rain most of the day. For that I’m grateful.

I had many meetings today, but napped in between. Tomorrow is not quite as bad as that, and if I don’t feel better, I’ll go back to the doctor for an ENT appointment or something. Ugh.

I’ll try to be interesting tomorrow.

Visiting the Official Wildflowers

Yeah, yeah, I write about wildflowers all the time. But today four of my Master Naturalist friends and I traveled to the deepest depths of Austin, Texas (which only took 1.5 hours on a Saturday with no huge festival happening). There, we found the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, a regular treasury of Texas wildflowers, many at their peak of bloom.

We were prepared for rain and dropping temperatures.

I used to be a member when my children were young and I only worked part time, but it had been quite a few years since my last visit. Seeing how well the plants have grown, as well as finding new places to look around, was a great experience for me.

One new area is a circle of young oak trees, all of which were grown from acorns of trees of historic importance in Texas. The tree shown here came from the Big Tree on Goose Island, which Lee and I visited recently.

I am a lot better at identifying native plants than I was 25 years ago, so I had fun figuring out what I was seeing before checking its sign or looking it up on iNaturalist. Of course, some plants were new surprises, which added to the fun. I think I ended up being the ID guide, though a couple of my companions were pretty good, too.

After enjoying the gardens, we went to the annual native plant sale, where the group picked up some interesting plants for the urban wildscape our group is making at the church where we meet.

We rewarded ourselves with a visit to the gift shop, where we found the Texas Master Naturalist textbook among the offerings. I got a book I can’t wait to read, with plant and insect mandalas.

When we were finished, we drove up to Georgetown for a late lunch at Wild Fire restaurant. It was pretty spectacular and a great ending to our trip. Plus! When I got home it started to rain. Yay! Let’s celebrate by looking at some plants I saw.

Looking forward to a cool day tomorrow and a good rain total!

Out of My Comfort Zone

I have been thinking a lot about how I complain about the government here in Texas, but don’t do anything about it other than contribute small amounts of money to candidates I appreciate. So today I went way outside my comfort zone and volunteered to help out at the local level. I met some new and unusual people and also enjoyed time with friends. Whew, that took a lot of psychic energy. I’m proud of myself.

Lee says I’m getting more active while he stays more ensconced in his hermitage. Could be a worse hideout.

I’m glad that I had a chance to go hang out in nature afterwards, as Terri and I went back over to Carolyn’s ranch to get ready for the Master Naturalist field trip. All the signs Terri made look great!

I mostly scouted around for plants that weren’t damaged by last week’s freeze or were blooming. I’m afraid wildflower season is delayed. But I found a few things to point out. I hope some of the dogwood blossoms are still around. They were quite lovely.

Nature and friends helped my introvert self equalize a bit, but I still needed a nap and some horse hugs when I got home. Now, please enjoy a few more woodland plants

Speaking in Public Equals Fun

Something that always has interested me about myself is that I just love being on stage. I always wondered why that was. Did I inherit my dad’s drive to be the center of attention? Do I just love to perform (regardless of talent), or what? Do I just love the sound of my own voice? It’s true that I am chatty. You may be aware of that.

At least Kathleen enjoyed our coffee talk this morning enough to make one of those AI portraits of it. Those things are pretty good!

This evening I gave a short presentation on beavers for our Texas Master Naturalist chapter. I shared what I’ve learned from my reading, especially Beaverland, and observations from my friend’s ponds. I had so much fun standing up there and sharing what I found interesting and making jokes. It’s so freeing to give a presentation about something other than enterprise project and resource management software.

Who wouldn’t love learning about these guys?

Once I got home, I reflected on why I get so energized by giving a talk, singing, reading, or anything in front of an audience. I like to share what makes me happy! Music makes me happy, so I like to share it (or did when I could still sing adequately — I was never great). And things I’ve learned excite me, so I enjoy sharing. It’s too much fun to get anxious about.

The last time I sang in public. I needed practice.

My friend Michelle presented the results of the bat monitoring project our chapter did last year before my talk. It was a different kind of talk, so our audience got some variety. There were at least five species heard among our nine sites. I admire that Michelle analyzed so many sound files to find bat sounds. Admittedly, I’m glad I didn’t volunteer to do it once I un-retired, because it took a lot of time, but I’d have loved doing the analysis. It’s so fun finding the patterns.

My only complaint for today is that I had a hard time viewing sound waves today at work, because my external monitors kept flaking out. Trying to edit the sound track to videos is not easy on a small laptop screen. I just did other stuff. No performance there!

Frustrating work setup, but at least one monitor came back.

Wow. Already bedtime. I have an exciting day of hanging out with Anita, my friend from high school, tomorrow. Exciting may not be the best word choice. We will see!