Weather Report – Page 19 – The Hermits' Rest

How to Keep Up Online

In what ways do you communicate online?

Greetings from the Polar Vortex where it finally got cold, even way down here in Texas.

We’ve been busy keeping ourselves and the dogs warm

Today’s question is harder than it seems. It forces me to admit something that kind of makes me sad: I’m no longer an internet pioneer. Y’all, I’m even in a couple of books for being an early feminist voice on the ‘net. I made websites before color monitors existed. I had email way before most people did, thanks to being at the University of Illinois.

I helped make online communities before Facebook. So what? Yep. That’s the past. Zzz.

I no longer keep up with things. Twitter bored me, I have to admit. I also don’t enjoy watching videos for very long (amusing since I create them every day at work). So I’m not on YouTube for hours. And I cannot tell you how annoying and boring I find Tik Tok and Reels and social media influencers.

Please enjoy them and tell me about it, though. I am fine experiencing those things second hand.

So. Boring senior citizen Suna communicates online mainly in Facebook and communities there, and by reading and writing blogs.

I text friends and family a lot, and enjoy my text groups with them. Certainly I’m up on Cameron news thanks to that! I also really enjoy online Zoom meetings that started in the pandemic but are now just nice ways to keep in touch with people I used to email a lot. I feel so close to friends all over the place!

Email is there still, but mostly for work or nonprofit stuff. The few email lists I’m still on don’t get much of my attention these days, because I run out of time.

For what it’s worth, that’s that. I enjoy the online communities as much as the in-person ones, though. I like blog comments and interacting with readers, a lot. So thanks to you commenters and silent readers. You know who you are!

It’s too cold to have a daily bird, though I did enjoy looking at puffy sparrows today. It’s supposed to snow tomorrow. I know the chickens are enjoying their heat lamps and the horses appreciate the new shelter. I tested both of them out today!

Our heater is still working, so us humans are coping well with 19° F weather. The heat pump unit got wrapped in insulation, so it’s not failing when it got into the 20s like it used to. We are getting stuff figured out, thanks to the brain power of the ranch commune.

The far left square is today. That’s the coldest day I’ve recorded!

It may snow tomorrow! I bet I take pictures. What do you think?

Road Trips and Staying Put

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

Lee and I have been on many memorable road trips, and I hope we have lots more. We made a lot of memories the time we took our first big RV, Ursula, to New Mexico in 2012. We first visited my friend Steve from grad school and his husband, Guy. They lived in Las Cruces at the time.

The only photo I can find from this trip. There were tons in my old blog.

We did so much in southern New Mexico, and we’re only slightly creeped out by surveillance drones. This was long before Build That Wall. I had the best Mexican food ever and saw so many great rocks. And old Las Cruces!

I got to watch Guy work with his rodeo horses at liberty. It was the first time I ever saw such a thing. Guy was so good with the animals and I guess was good under saddle as well since he had a huge saddle he won at gay rodeo in the house.

Later we drove farther north and went through deserts and forests, saw White Sands and the Malpais. We visited petroglyphs and a trading post we returned to on later trips for my turquoise needs.

Since I have no photos, here’s our woods today.

Other than the RV breaking down, all was well. We need to visit Steve again where he is now that he’s a widower.

We aren’t going anywhere this weekend. We were scheduled to camp, but chose to stay home and prepare for the bad weather that’s coming tomorrow. It’s our turn at last.

Who needs to travel when you can watch horses play?

The highlight of preparation was getting some sides added to the horse pens to add a lot more shelter from the wind and cold. Here’s how it looked before.

I was impressed that they got red metal to make the sides from. I didn’t expect coordination! Here are some in progress photos.

It really looks snazzy now that it’s done, and it’s very sturdy. May as well do it right the first time. Next we will get more covered roof for summer shade and rain protection. There will be gutters! Anyway, here’s how it looks now.

We hope the horses use the new shelter. My guys looked pretty displeased.

Daily Bird

I’m just gonna declare all the sparrows birds of the day, because they were just so cute today bopping around through the trees. I didn’t bother them one bit. Enjoy them.

We’re ready for the cold and maybe snow tomorrow. Hope we got everything safe and snug.

You Mean I Have to Write a Mission Statement?

What is your mission?

Do I also have to have a vision? Argh. I’ve written so many mission and vision statements for institutions and organizations. I’d prefer not to do that again, thanks.

Mission statements have to have bullet points and be active! (From what I vaguely remember.) So:

Suna’s Mission is to:

Respect the Earth, yourself, and others
Be mindful
Maintain healthy boundaries
Be kind
Never stop learning

Today I spent some time learning about using my legs better on my beautiful young horse, Droodles (Drew). That fulfilled my mission of learning, respecting myself, and treating the animals in my care kindly, but with boundaries. And when riding a horse, you need to stay in the moment and be mindful. I guess that mission statement works.

He was ready to GO this afternoon! Good thing, because we got lots of exercise.

Drew’s “Christmas” present arrived so he got to wear his new halter and lead rope today. He’s looking good! Sometimes I still can’t believe I have a chance to be a part of my fantastic horses’ lives.

Apache is still a little lame, but getting around okay. I still can’t find where the abscess is, but I’m hoping he’s better soon. Finding that thing is my mission for him! He got a cinnamon colored halter and I hope to try it out tomorrow when I check him out.

Daily Bird

It was extra windy and pretty cold today, but I did my bird watching like a good scientist. The best thing I saw was the first thing, though. I got to enjoy watching the great blue heron chow down on a fish. it usually doesn’t come this close.

Later, after I checked the rain gauge, I saw it catch another one and I guess wrestle it to the ground. It kept poking at it. Maybe it was a crawfish.

I Could Turn Left Rather Than Right

What could you do differently?

I think I already answered a version of this question so I’m going in a different direction with it. Ha ha. Direction. I mean, there’s a sh** ton I could do differently, and I’ve written about that enough.

Instead, let’s take a walk, but differently. Today I turned left rather than right when I left our driveway on my daily nature walk. Whoa.

I’d been wanting to walk the other way down our road past our property line for a while, because there are some empty fields and mottes of trees where I’ve heard interesting birds while I was busy doing horse control at Sara’s place.

So, off I went. First I had to enjoy the horses, who were lounging around after playing in the burs (mostly Drew). They’re so cute when they lie down. I do wish they then wouldn’t grind mud into their coats, but they ARE horses.

As for birds, I was glad I brought my binoculars, because I got to get a good look at our resident American Kestrel and see it fly with the sun shining through its feathers.

The sun was so bright today that things were hard to see, but I was rewarded by seeing sun dogs in the clouds on either side of it for a while. Perfect cloud placement.

I saw a lot of woodpeckers, vultures, hawks, and caracaras. I also noticed that all the doves I saw were Eurasian Collared Doves, not the Mourning Doves I see at my house right down the road. Binoculars helped with that.

I heard both Eastern and Western Meadowlarks, which is cool, but I didn’t see anything new other than a White-breasted Nuthatch. I thought I’d see. One before, but I guess not.

I’m glad I took the walk in this direction, because I got to visit with Sara and look at her permaculture garden progress. Of course, for me the highlight was getting to visit with Jhayati, who is 8 months old now. She’s a beautiful filly and has such a striking face. I sure look forward to watching her grow.

After I saw her, I saw one more mockingbird then no more birds at all. Do they have clocks? They shut up at 11am.

Luckily there was still something interesting to see. I saw what looked like eggs on the ground where hay bales recently were. It was the eruption of the most cool mushroom we have here, the Lizard’s Claw Stinkhorn Lysurus cruciatus.

Interesting note: I posted photos of this on The Hermits’ Rest Facebook page, which is public, and suddenly weird replies from so-called people trying to promote psychedelic mushrooms popped up, repeatedly. Sigh. Lots to block. This mushroom just stinks. I didn’t see anything about it being psychedelic, but I’m now glad I didn’t lick it.

Penney says she’d lick it for me.

Thinking about…Right Now

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

This is another trick question. I’m doing my best to stop myself if I start dwelling on the past (except good memories!). And I don’t think it’s healthy to do what I call pre-worrying about what might happen if circumstances go in ways we would like to avoid. That leads people like me to worse anxiety or even ulcers.

This chain got up on the gate thanks to worrying about future dog escapes. The big dogs could climb it.

I think one of the most helpful things I’ve learned from studying Buddhism is the idea of living in the moment. The more I do this, the more content I am in my life and the more joy I can find.

A part of the past I do like to think about is when this cute kitchen was built. We want to preserve it in our renovation. Retro chic.

No one can prevent thinking about the past and future all the time. What I try to do is see what can be learned from past events, and I try to figure out what I can control or affect positively in the future. I learned that from my spouse’s study of Stoicism. It’s made a huge difference for both of us.

Daily Birds

Today was wet and chilly. In the morning there were mostly the usual birds. But it was so quiet that I could hear wing flaps from vultures flying over. Merlin identified three birds that were surprising because we aren’t in their range: Swainson’s thrush, Black-capped chickadee, and Western wood pewee. Maybe the storms brought them over. Or maybe there was a software glitch. The chickadees look really similar but have different calls, so you’d think that would be right. It’s a mystery.

I turned the app on in the late afternoon to see if there were any different birds, and sure enough, there were two ducks, the common mallard and blue-winged teal. I’m hearing lots more ducks and geese this year!

A Gift of Mutual Acceptance

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

The gift I want most in the world would be to repair my relationship with my older son and come to some kind of mutual acceptance of each other, just as we are. Understanding of perceived mistakes or failings on each of our parts is something we could do. I’d be willing to try. Anyone willing to help bring us back together would receive my eternal gratitude.

Foggy morning leads to melancholic musings

Well, that’s not something I foresee happening after five years. So I’ll add that the greatest gifts I do receive are friendship and acceptance. I think we all would like to feel accepted and like we fit in. I treasure my community of kind and open hearted friends who accept each other, warts and all.

Online friends count, too. So many of us would feel very isolated if it weren’t for our friends who are connected on social media, on video chats, and in blogs. Social media is NOT all bad.

Daily Bird

Well, there weren’t many birds out today, because it was so foggy and cold.

The highlight today was the reappearance of one of my favorites, the barred owl. I’ve read that barred owls and great horned owls don’t like to live together, so I was happy to hear one this morning. Hooray!

Alma Mater Times Two

What colleges have you attended?

Well, that’s a question with a lot of assumptions behind it. Who says all bloggers go to college? I’d have preferred something like, “Where did you get your education?” (From where?) I realize there are people would give flippant answers, like “the school of hard knocks,” but you’d also get interesting insights into folks with non-traditional paths.

I was VERY traditional. After four years of attending a large high school in suburban Ft Lauderdale, Florida (unfortunately named Plantation High School), I spent four years at a large state university. The years at the University of Florida had a lot of good parts. I learned a lot, screwed up my personal life irreparably, and thoroughly enjoyed living in my home town again. My studies focused on linguistics, Japanese, and cinema studies (my boyfriend’s major). I’m extremely grateful to the National Merit Scholarship system, which allowed me to attend college even though my family was not well off and my mother had many medical bills.

See the bright spot under the sun? That’s the bit of flooding we got last night. It was a good rain.

I then went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for graduate school. Fun fact: both the schools I attended have orange and blue as their school colors. At least gators add green to the mix. UI are the Fighting Illini, which I was shocked to discover pronounced the last two vowels like “eye,” not “ee.”

There I studied pragmatics, syntax, and semantics. I learned to write well and to teach adults. I loved teaching. Academic writing, not so much. My topic got really boring, which is why I’m not a professor right now.

My favorite thing on campus was the beautiful statue of Alma Mater welcoming students and graduates, by Lorado Taft. It was always a happy sight.

If you’re still awake, I can give you my highlights of the day. First, I finished my giant three-part 2023 temperature blanket.

The last square is a handy key to the colors. I included the white, silver and purple that would have indicated 0° to 25° even though it never got that cold. Maybe this year! Or not! I could do without the Polar Vortex they keep threatening us with.

I’ll write up an official summary once I figure out how to get a photo of the whole thing.

Daily Birds

Second, two birds made me happy today. One was the first bird Merlin heard, a yellow-bellied sapsucker. I think I’ve now recorded all the woodpeckers that live here.

When I lived in Illinois, we had a sweet gum tree in our back yard. Every year one of these little guys would come and drill a new row of holes in that tree. It was so much fun to watch it working away, and the holes were a wonderful remembrance.

The other bird that brought joy today has already been the Daily Bird, but I was excited to actually see the great horned owl today. Yes, that blob in the photograph was hooting.

I also enjoyed my sparrow buddies a lot. The Harris’s sparrows were singing and playing this afternoon. I hadn’t heard them in a few days. They fed in the trees next to me for a while, so I got good views, though obscured by branches. Here are some photos of them, the other sparrows, and cardinals in the brush and trees. Yes, it’s a brown world right now, but I like brown.

Playing Is for Grownups

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

I’ll answer this: yes, often. We all should play.

I hang out with birds and plants every day, just for fun, and nominally for research. I’m not doing it for seeing the mist or the rarest birds. I just want to understand what lives where I do.

I mess around with horses. It’s because I love them. They are fun to play with even when things don’t quite work out. Like today, when it rained throughout my lesson, and Drew was not feeling good for some reason. But it worked out and we learned that he pays attention to me! I’m not in it to be the best, but to enjoy improving my skills and keeping my horses happy and healthy.

I craft, mostly knitting and crocheting. It used to be serious for me. I wanted to be known for my skill. Now I make things to enjoy or to experiment. I don’t care if anyone copies my patterns, if I’m making the trendy thing in the trendy yarn, or if I churn out 20 sweaters a year. I just have fun playing with yarn.

Next-to-last square on the 2023 temperature blanket. This one is the highest high and lowest low.

I hike! I walk! I hang out with friends! I blog! I play! It’s all for fun.

I hope you’re having fun in this, the only life you’re going to have this time around.

Oh Goody, I’m Still Here, Even though I Skipped Christmas

I skipped yesterday because I just spent the day cooking and being with my current nuclear family. I’m proud I didn’t spend any money on gifts this year or on commercial aspects of American Xmas. I just didn’t want to be all consumerist like I used to be. I did give my son and his partner the thermal stitch hot pads I’d made, though. I hope to take Anita on a trip next year as a gift.

We can fly away, like this red-shouldered hawk.

I didn’t even buy any food for dinner. I cooked a giant pork loin that was in the freezer. Half of it will magically reappear at New Year’s. I made dressing with bread cubes leftover from Thanksgiving and served vegetables and cranberry sauce I already had in the pantry. So there! The meal was just fine, and the conversation, laughter, and low stress among our group was marvelous. Success.

I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day looking at birds, which I did a lot of today, too. I saw pairs of kingfishers and caracaras, which makes me hope they are nesting. And today I got to watch a flock of chickadees eating at the stand of trees near the creek bridge. They are so comical. I heard them make a song I’d never heard them make before, too.

A day off really goes fast if you spend much of it watching little peeping things, and before I knew it, the time for a horse lesson had come. Droodles got to go again, since Apache was on sick leave. He was much better today about bur removal and seemed in better spirits, like his old friendly self.

Not Drew, but fun chickadees.

Speaking of much better, when Sara pulled up with her trailer and Aragorn, all the horses got excited. I enjoyed watching Mabel and Dusty gallop up to the pens, calling out. But after they stopped, I still heard thundering hooves. It was Apache! There he was cantering at great speed to check things out. He didn’t look very lame at all! Maybe his abscess has burst. I’ll check first thing tomorrow, since it was too dark when I got home to look, but he was walking normally. Yay! I may have both my horses back available to ride!

We will be out stabbing our poles at that bull again in no time. (Setting sun lit up the trees.)

Drew’s lesson showed he’s feeling better, but a bit out of shape. There was some huffing and puffing in his part, which looked so endearing. I enjoyed watching Tarrin work with him and got to ride a bit myself, which I was glad for, since riding makes my back feel better. Aragorn is also making some great progress as well. I enjoy watching Sara’s lessons. We each benefit from what the other is learning.

Bonus enjoyment came when we got to watch the sun setting right as the full moon was rising. We all got to enjoy that!

It’s good to be back rambling along.

Nestivus, Parte Dos

Huh? Well. I just noticed that all my blog hits today come from the year we went to an old but comfy condo in Bandera where I enjoyed many deer, cats, and vultures. There, I discussed participating in the invented holiday Nestivus, which is just for introverts who need to recharge from holiday activities.

This entire Christmas season I’m engaging in Nestivus, which requires one to retreat to your refuge and veg, zone out, and nest in comfy clothing, with your furry friends. It’s a great idea, and I’m grateful to the blogger who invented it in 2019. Ah, back when people had fun I. Groups and needed to retreat.

Harvey was happy to Nestivus with Lee when we came home.

I guess someone linked to my old post, which is nice!

Anyway, maybe next year will find me more enthusiastic about decorations, presents, and all those modern Christmas things. Currently I’m advocating for peace on earth and good will to all.

I wish you all the chance to find small things of beauty around you. Isn’t this Texas nightshade berry bright?

It rained a lot at Canyon Lake and the Hermits’ Rest overnight. We came home to the usual results of over two inches of rain: a flooded creek.

I enjoyed listening to birds, checking out the creek and trying to feed filthy horses when we got home. All horses had rolled in mud and burs. Great. But the rain is appreciated and enough of a seasonal gift for me.