Weather Report – Page 14 – The Hermits' Rest

It’s Like Riding a Bicycle – Information, Not Advice

List the people you admire and look to for advice…

Okay, I’m not going to list everyone I admire! Some of them do t want to be blogged about, anyway. And advice? An organization I used to work for had a catchphrase something like, “Offer information, don’t give advice.” I rarely ask for advice these days. But I appreciate information from trusted sources.

That said, I have always found doing tarot card readings to be a way of providing information and perspectives without giving advice. You get some ideas from archetypal images and let the person you’re reading for draw their own conclusions. Ideally.

Celtic cross with significator, using Babylonian Tarot.

I hadn’t been reading cards much. The reading above was years ago in a previous post. Since 2018, I haven’t really wanted any insights into things around me, sort of feeling like ignorance may be bliss. But I’ll read if asked.

So today I was asked. I then realized my favorite Robin Wood deck was hiding somewhere in my Austin house stuff. And I was feeling rusty, especially since the only deck I could find that wasn’t overly cutesy was one with alternative names for suits, and worse, had labels on the cards giving them meanings I didn’t necessarily want to hear.

This cheerful card did come up. The good news is no one can stab you any more. They’re out of swords.

However, the reading went fine. Like riding a bicycle, it all comes back. I just love looking at what is laid out and seeing a gestalt of what the cards are hinting at before looking at details. That is FUN. And helping people with problems look at things from a new perspective is rewarding. (Plus I got to talk to an old friend.)

Maybe if I locate one of the decks I’m more comfortable with, I’ll do more, just not for me or my family. I have a friend who’s a professional tarot reader who doesn’t do family readings.

(I’m sure somewhere in this blog I talk more about out tarot and how I use it, so in a few words, no I don’t predict the future and no it’s not a parlor trick. It’s intuition and archetypes.)

I’m glad I was home and able to spontain a tarot reading, since not much else happened today. More rain and wetness! 100% humidity means I had big hair. I did get to see a big ole jackrabbit, which is pretty rare here, and continued to get the buntings more comfortable with me. I enjoy both the painted and indigo ones singing and flitting around.

You can practically tell that this is a bird! They’re getting closer!

I hope you have trustworthy advisors, but even more, I hope you have the wisdom to make your own decisions based on good information, and if you get a tarot reading, don’t take it literally. That’s my advice.

Pretending I’m Camping

We aren’t at a state park tonight, because Lake Livingston was getting flooded today. Plus, Lee didn’t want to drive the big vehicle towing a small vehicle in hard rain. It’s rainy all over our area, but a lot worse to the east. Maybe we’ll go over tomorrow.

Looking at the bright side (though it was a dim day), I needed to get a lot of work done today, and I had plenty of time to do it AND have a S’mores brownie with Anita at the bakery. That was one good brownie. And it was sort of camping food, right?

After work, I indulgently sat in the back yard with the birds. I even got a recognizable painted bunting picture!

But the way I turned my day of disappointment into a day of joy came when I decided to go for a late-afternoon walk and pretend I was on one of my nature walls, in search of new and exciting things, and maybe encountering someone interesting to talk to!

There! Pitcher’s leather flower! (Or bluebill, *Clematis pitcheri*)

Finally finding the coolest wildflower in my exotic county road made my pretend hike more exciting right away. It’s hard to spot these native clematis, so my heart swelled up a wee bit.

Then I got to talk to someone interesting, my son, who stopped to chat in his way home. We always have fun telling each other our latest cool nature discoveries. He had a bee swarm near his place and also saw a huge toad. I told him about the scorpion and crawfish from yesterday.

Funereal dusky wing, another exotic find.

I went a bit further, listening to birds and looking for turtles, when another familiar car drove up. It was Buddy, who lives one house further than my son. He told me about a skunk he saw and showed me the rattles from a big rattlesnake he found at his house, which is our former rattlesnake house project. Fitting.

Dickcissels listened at each of my stops.

I got all cheerful after sharing tales with my neighbors and didn’t even mind when I could hear no birds at all for a while, at the top of the hill (which technically is a ridge).

I love looking down the hill at the creek and our house.

My nature hike got interesting again quickly, though, when I heard some interesting hours or squawks coming from the creek. Merlin told me it was wood ducks. Really? You mean, those really pretty ones? This was going through my mind when all of a sudden two pair of genuine wood ducks flew right by! I could even sort of tell they weren’t blue-winged teals, mallards, or even whistling ducks, which are the usual suspects.

They aren’t uncommon in Texas, it’s just that our ranch isn’t ideal duck habitat. But today it WAS a flooded woods.

This last encounter sent me into full Nature Girl joy mode. I was grinning like a child and getting more thrilled with every sight. Look! The kingbird is back! There’s a big hawk, so they’re not all gone! There’s something loud! That was the other man of our house coming home from work and trying to make me jump. Ha. I heard the truck.

Yep. I managed to get exercise, see interesting plants and birds, and talk to folks. That was as nice as camping, practically! We will try again tomorrow, maybe. You can’t wish away rain here, knowing the scorching heat is coming soon enough.

Innate Direction

What gives you direction in life?

After the hiccups this week, I’m ready for a shift in direction, but I don’t really need one. Little challenges help keep me focused on the big picture, not the tiny dots that make up the totality.

It’s like the temperature blanket, which I need to look at like this every so often, to see the winter flowing into spring. Mostly I look at individual squares.

Today’s challenge was getting stung by a scorpion, even though I’d checked my boots before putting them inn(from now on they don’t stay outside, even if they got all muddy in the stuck-in-the-water challenge earlier in the week). And hey, the intense pain makes me forget the hurt of my big-ass hoof-shaped bruise from Tuesday’s challenge! And I feel the itching from the chigger bites I got in the woods yesterday celebrating May.

It rained a lot, and we kept seeing crawfish crossing the driveway. I almost stepped on the one trying to disguise itself as a leaf. I avoided a crawfish pinch!

It’s all pretty funny at this point, and it reminds me that my direction is shaped by my innate desire to learn how things work. Mostly I want to observe life around me and determine patterns. Today I carefully noted all the different vireos and warblers that have appeared in the last few days. There was even a rose-breasted grosbeak, not common here. I’m curious as to how long they’ll visit during migration.

Yes, this is my best warbler photo. No idea which one it is.

Where I hope I’m headed is to even more internal peace and calm. Watching the seasons repeat yearly with variations but an overall consistency grounds me more and more. I think I’ll need that in the coming months.

I’m driven to try to understand people, as well. Like many of us, some of the things groups of people are saying and doing confuse me, but I’m doing better at seeing how much of it stems from humans needing to belong. Tribalism is not pretty when one feels threatened. I like it much better when it’s about football teams.

Did someone say threat? I better get hopping!

I’m wandering, so blame the Benadryl I took. But I want to recommend a television show we’ve been watching that has been very good for my soul. It’s A Brief History of the Future, which is streaming on PBS. The show looks into where humanity is headed in positive as well as negative ways. I’ve learned a lot about ideas that can heal the planet and make life better for all people. It celebrates differences and commonalities. Worth watching!

Like floods, it all passes. The green in the pond is the usual shore, and the shiny area in back is water pouring in.

I hope you’re enjoying the direction in which you’re headed. I love the daily surprises, both fun and painful. My hope is that they balance out so there’s never a dull moment unless we want one.

Getting Productive on a Challenging Day

When do you feel most productive?

I was not productive during my usual most productive times today, because we had a couple of waves of rainstorms come through. But generally, I do best between around 9 and 2 pm. I’m a little slow when the day starts, and by mid afternoon, I hit a slump. I think that’s pretty normal.

Today being Sunday, I’d planned to spend my productive hours exploring the more distant parts of our ranch complex for the City Nature Challenge, then I’d hoped to ride Drew for the first time since he got back (I’ve been exercising him, just have had vet visits, birthday dinners, and such getting in my way). But, I was determined to get my observations in and my exercise accomplished, even if it meant dodging raindrops.

I was also determined to photograph a dang dickcissel, which I did.

I felt like I sat on my rear end a lot today, but I also crawled under electric fences, climbed muddy embankments, and walked a few mikes, some of it briskly. I think the rain may have given me more opportunities to see things, so it all worked out.

Crawling on the ground helped me spot this excellent stinkhorn, for example.

I had hoped to photograph more birds today, and I did, though many were pretty bad photos. I was so excited to finally see an indigo bunting this afternoon that I didn’t care how bad my photo came out, as long as I could tell it was blue. Now I’ll believe Merlin when it says it hears one.

The rain smooshed most of the flowers, but I did see a good number of insects. I don’t think I realized we had so many kinds of butterflies before I started recording them. I think that’s a good sign we have left enough native plants around.

Whew. But wait, there’s more. I observed lots of interesting water snake behavior today. In the morning, while looking at the heron, I saw at least four snakes traversing the pond behind the house. I got blurry images, so no ID.

Later, around 6 pm when I decided to get the rest of my exercise goal accomplished, I noticed a snake near the shore of Walkers Creek. As I watched, I saw two more. The creek was quite still, so I could see them real well. Then they obliged me and swam up to the bridge. That let me ID them as nonvenomous diamondback water snakes. What a sight!

All this makes me more firm in my decision to not swim in the ponds or creeks here. Interesting aside: when I came back from my walk to the cemetery, the creek was rushing and gurgling. It was at least three inches higher. That’s what flash floods are all about!

I got a lot done in my non-productive hours!

Today Was a Proper Camping Day

After yesterday’s constant precipitation, today came as a very welcome change. It was nice and sunny, as well as pleasantly cool. I was ready to get in some exploration of Lake Whitney State Park!

The lake looks way better in the sunshine.

The first thing I did was head back to the Two Bridges Trail for a birdwatching walk. It was led by two fellow Master Naturalists who claimed to be amateurs but have lots of experience.

I think they thought I was weird, but they said I could share their picture with one of the oldest trees in the park.

We had a very good time, even if we didn’t see or hear too much exciting bird action. I learned much about the park and lake. The lake is only about a foot deep, for the most part!

There are vitex trees here, and no one knows how they got there!

The walk ended on a triumphant note when I heard a male painted bunting then actually spotted it. I got a great look with my binoculars and even got this blurry yet identifiable photo.

In the same clump of trees, a Nashville warbler appeared. I’d been hearing them, but this was my first sighting. We felt quite successful.

On the way back, I saw a guy walking down the road who had three cameras and binoculars. I stopped to tell him about the birds and he laughed. The other two had just told him, as well. I guess bird lovers stick together.

When I got back, I sat by the RV and hung out with Lee for a while. I heard an unusual bird, so I turned on Merlin. It was the summer tanagers! We quickly figured out they were close. Sure enough, we got to enjoy great views of both the male and female! He’s solid red and she’s pale yellow. Whew, that’s a lot of bird excitement for one morning.

After lunch I headed out again so I could check out the other trail. It’s called the Towash Forest Trail, but there’s not much forest. Towash is the town that’s now under the lake.

I must say the scenery left a lot to be desired. The first part interested me, because I could see old fences, and trees were all lined up as if they used to be along a fence. I think that part of the trail used to be the road leading to Towash.

Most of the trail went along the lake. There were small trees but lots of dewberries and grapevines. Of course, there were insects. There were disturbing numbers of caterpillars and butterflies, along with a new friend, the bird grasshopper. They were flying off in front of me, just like the butterflies were. I even saw a Gulf fritillary and a black swallowtail but they avoided my camera.

These were all over the evening primrose

Yes, there were birds. There weren’t too many, but I did enjoy finding a flock of coots, watching Scissortail catch a bug, and startling a spotted sandpiper. Again, there were lots of egrets.

Later, after some lovely rest, I couldn’t control my nature-loving self and I blazed through the trees behind our campsite to find the lake we can barely glimpse. It was worth it. This inlet is very natural and beautiful. I saw so many shore birds, ducks, and others!

Having just dozed off, I’m pretty sure I should stop typing. But it was a great day in nature. Ahh.

Damn Damp

Yep. It started raining last night and it’s still raining. It’s also pretty cold. I did not bring the correct clothing on this camping trip. Things have not gone as planned, so we were flexible. We went for a drive.

This reminded me of the Irish coast with the gray skies and bright yellow flowers (gorse).

We went to the other side of Lake Whitney and drove around a Corps of Engineers park, Walling Bend. It wasn’t fancy but was pretty in a disheveled way.

We saw a baptism going on, with mariachi music. Then we drove around a neighborhood looking for houses for sale. Ha ha. It may have been the scariest white supremacist neighborhood I ever drove through. I was glad to be wearing a reddish hat and that there’s a US flag, sorta, on the back of the Jeep. We were incognito.

I did get to go on a half hour walk, in which I managed to see a hummingbird and flock of cattle egrets. Lots more gulls were out. They’re used to being wet.

Most flowers looked pretty sad, but this wild onion looked great.

I guess the good news is that it’s really quiet at the campground! Everybody is inside avoiding all the lightning. Good news is that it should dry out tomorrow. I hope! I really want to hike some more.

Mushrooms like damp. I didn’t find any morels like many of my friends did today (on the east coast).

Other than that excitement, Lee cooked another meal on his George Foreman grill, which seems pretty handy, and we finished watching the show Wednesday, which we started yesterday. I’m glad they still make DVDs for us non-streamers. We enjoyed the show very much. The writing was great.

If it keeps raining, we’ll go back home. Of course, it rained there today, too. I’m dying to try the weird liquid meals Kathleen has to eat to perk up her liver. They’ll probably make me gag, too. Misery loves company, though.

Plus, another row of temperature blanket is fine, with much rain. You can see it’s warming up a bit.

Birds Come to Mind

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

Well, of course birds are the first thing that comes to mind, since I saw and heard at least 50 today. That’s not bad for a day in which I also worked a lot!

Vultures waited patiently for me to come out and play.

Lake Whitney State Park is a birder’s paradise right now. Well, probably all of Texas is during spring migration. I heard so many warblers that my head was ringing. And lots of painted buntings, who finally graced me with visual sightings. The summer tanagers are still hiding, but I have time.

My mousy buddies, the grackles, were also here.

I enjoyed a midday break by hiking the Two Bridges Trail, which wound through lovely wildflowers and woods with very old oaks (live oaks and post oaks I think). There were, in fact, two bridges.

I also finally got to see the lake, which is quite wild and natural looking. It’s probably prettier with blue skies, but we got clouds and nice cool weather.

The trees were beautiful, too. Here are just a few I saw around the park today.

The thing I saw most of, other than plants, were butterflies and caterpillars. I felt like royalty walking down the path as the butterflies scattered upon my approach. Make way for the Queen! Mostly it was orange sulphurs and red admirals. I have no idea what most of the caterpillars are, because I haven’t had time to ID them.

Before I share flowers, I want to show you the family of young armadillos I saw. They were having a grand time jumping around and pouncing on bugs. It was so fun to watch them.

What’s not fun is that I can’t share photos of wildlife I safely observe from a distance without people being compelled to inform me that they carry germs that cause diseases. I do know that. I don’t hug and kiss them, nor any deer that might have ticks, or potentially rabid skunks and raccoons.

Happy babies

Why were there four armadillo, you ask? Well, their females always give birth to four identical babies. Interesting!

Of course, I saw some flowers, including some new ones for me. That’s always fun. Here are a few.

I got all this done while feeling a bit under the weather! We just relaxed all evening and watched a television show, Wednesday, all evening. That may explain why I’m too tired to look up names for things!

Maybe I’ll Ride Again!

What’s the most fun way to exercise?

No surprises here! I find riding horses to be the most fun way to exercise. That’s followed by grooming and feeding horses. (I also like hiking.) Now, I’m not doing a lot of riding right now, since Apache’s feet are healing and Drew is still “off.”

Today, Droodles headed off to the fancy vet in Bryan, because Tarrin said she’s not seeing the results we need with just the rehab they’ve been doing at her facility. I completely agreed, because his health is my first priority, whether being ridden or not.

He went with friends, including Tarrin’s very large personal horses, and Vapor, who’s been in rehab, too.

I was very impressed with how the vet evaluated Drew. He would manipulate Drew’s hindquarters then see how he trotted. It became clear that his left stifle, which is equivalent to a knee in a horse, was the problem. Drew made that clear.

After all this, Drew was taken inside for X-rays. We had his head looked at, too, to be sure his kick didn’t damage him. The vet was pretty sure the issue wasn’t Drew’s back, but they wanted to be sure.

Bonus shot: you can see his more gray mane coming in.

The X-rays showed that his head is good, and best of all, so is his spine! I saw it myself. Nice spacing. But, there’s something called synovitis, swelling on his stifle, which is like arthritis. Well, that sounds painful!

So, he got injections in his spine and stifle (I am not sure what they are) that should make him feel better until the swelling is down, which should be soon. He has a medication for equine arthritis called Adequan. Once he’s on that and gets the inflammation cycle under control, he won’t need injections again until he’s old, we hope.

Regan takes care of drugged Drew. He’s very relaxed after his X-rays and meds.

Whew. I think this will do the trick. Droodles will stay at Tarrin’s so she can administer the first doses of Adequan (by the way, $$$). He can come home in two weeks! And we should be able to resume lessons and such. Back to my favorite form of exercise!

I just hope he feels a lot better. What happened to him is the result of being ridden extensively as a two-year-old, poor guy.

Other Stuff

I picked up my Costco glasses after the vet was done. I got one wild and one mild. I love the red ones, even if my family is iffy on them. The black ones look all sedate, but I just noticed that on the sides, there are holographic stars and logo. Ha!

I didn’t get home until late, because I had to do a work meeting in the car (I have no backup) and then ran into a bad storm. Another one is about to hit. We need the rain, even if it messes with my horse schedule.

I did get to go out and enjoy birds between storms. The sparrows entertained as usual.

Best of all, I looked up to see a flock of…birds…fly right over my head. They looked like sea or shore birds, so maybe they’re the sandpipers I keep hearing as they pass through. Hmm. A mystery.

Another mystery: what causes all the white flowers along our road? These should be purple.

Thanks for reading all my veterinarian details. As I often do, I blogged this so I won’t forget it.

Can I Eclipse the Eclipse?

I know that people not in the parts of North America who didn’t see a total solar eclipse today are sick of hearing how awesome the one today was. And I admit that, having seen the annular eclipse last October I was pretty blasé about it.

Who could be blasé about this? Photo by my friend Jeff Tveraas. He has a good camera.

But, awesome is the right word. I was in awe during totality and couldn’t decide what was more fascinating, the corona and visible flares or how dark it got. The solar pool lights came on and I could see stars. Now only the aurora borealis remains on my weather bucket list.

We had to watch from my house, because I now have to take tomorrow off work. I can’t lose two days of pay, since I’m a contractor. But I think we got longer totality at home than where I was going to go.

To commemorate the big event, I did a project where I tried to photograph every flower blooming today. I missed the ground cherries by the horse pens because the rain arrived just as I was trying to feed. Didn’t want to ruin the phone! But, for your pleasure, here they are. I’ll break them up by color. Let’s start with white.

On to yellow. There’s always lots of yellow.

Let’s see what we have that’s pink.

Is there anything orange? Red?

Since blue flowers mostly look purple to me, I’ll put those two together.

This may not outshine the eclipse, but 32 types is sure a lot of interesting flowers (and insects). Thanks for indulging me.

By the way, the birds were indeed quiet during the eclipse totality, and I heard my first dickcissel of the year today. Auspicious!

Avian Visitors

It was another pleasant spring day, the kind that makes you forget you live in the land of unbearable summers. Since my dear spouse isn’t big on doing anything involving leaving the premises before noon these days, I had the morning all to myself. After I fed the chickens, I looked over at the horse pens and saw a white bird land on the ground.

I wondered what a great egret would be doing over there rather than by a pond/tank. As I walked closer, I realized the bird wasn’t alone.

Once I saw how many there were, I realized it must be time for a cattle egret visit. They show up at least once a year. Upon closer inspection I could see the color on their heads, which confirmed who the visitors were.

Later I saw them with the cattle, but they’re gone now.

I’m still here, even though you didn’t share pictures of me earlier in the week. This is my adoration of the pretzel bag face.

Most of the day I spent reading, which is such a luxury, and going to Costco to order a couple more pairs of eyeglasses. I got one intellectual black pair, and one funky red pair. No more online glasses for me. They just don’t work out real well.

I’ve been enjoying this period of peace, calm, and equanimity. Living in the moment is easier on days like today.