I spent all day traveling, but it was pretty good. I always like plane travel. Since I don’t do it often, I find it fun. I go back to being a little kid when plane travel was glamorous.
I still like cool planes.
I got a good bit of knitting done, and people watched happily at the Austin, Dallas, and Denver. On the flight to Denver I really enjoyed the women I sat with. We had conversations about elderly parents and wanting them to be safe and stay in their homes, about horses, and so much more. Such nice people. The one who had to put her parents in assisted living was so beautiful and caring.
This dude reflected my mood after waiting in baggage claim in Denver.
The only bad thing was that my shuttle was 4 hours after I arrived. I did a lot of walking around and knitting. I headed outside quite early, but the guy arrived early. I was the only passenger, so off we went. We talked the whole way.
Jim is a classical guitar player and teacher, whose politics and spiritual views are just like mine. So, even though I didn’t get to see much, because it was dark, I had an excellent trip to Breckenridge.
And yay, I have a new temporary home. It has a desk for my 6 am calls!
I got to the condo place at 8 pm Mountain time. That’s 9 Central, so I’m tired. Tomorrow the fun starts. My friend and her husband are going to drive me around!
I’m looking forward to the cool weather. It was 73 in Denver and 36 here in the mountains. That’s altitude!
Dateline: Austin. Today was sorta hard in a few ways. For one, I worked on so many things that my head was spinning, plus I was trying to get packed for my next condo stay. Because of that, today’s brief visit with Anita was my last time in Bobcat when I own it.
We’re looking out at the sunset, as the sun goes down on our time in Austin.
And, whoa, it was windy even for out at the ranch! Gusts were well over 40 miles per hour. It was actually hard to walk, which helped me reach my exercise goal. That’s rare. Things were banging around the chickens and the horses, so I worked on shutting them up.
I need my beauty sleep!
I got everything done in time, including horse and donkey hugs. Apache got his feet trimmed, so there was bonding time for all.
I took a picture to gaze at.
Eventually, the relatives returned from their duties at the Hermits Rest Home, as I secretly dubbed the farm in Yorktown. After watching the dogs frolic in the wind and staring at the pool, Lee and I headed to Austin with my luggage. As Lee shared how thrilled he was to never go over the speed bumps again, I got all sad about selling my house.
Maybe it’s homely outside, but it was a refuge.
Lee reminded me that we plan to come back each month for book club, so it’s not like I’ve left forever. But, I’ll really miss this haven of peace and quiet.
Anita painted the deck!!! What a gal.
I was so sad that I really couldn’t hang around long. I’ll just call Anita Saturday and really talk about her house, her job, and plans. Good thing she’s such a good friend.
My buddy
So, we headed over to the always unique Austin Airport Hilton, the one that used to be an Air Force command center.
View from our room.
They recently redecorated, and it’s really nice now. It was nice of Lee to join me. We’re enjoying some local-ish bourbon and watching some football. I’m glad we get to spend the evening together peacefully.
Quite nice.
I’m looking forward to my trip to Colorado tomorrow. I’ll get to hang out with some old friends, see some snow, and do my annual solo retreat. Of course, I’ll be working, since contractors get no vacation! But I’ll have plenty of afternoon and evening time, thanks to 6 am meetings starting my day off long before sunrise!
It will be fine. I love working in new places. I’m not so worried about getting sick, with all my vaccinations, too. It’s getting better, a bit. Maybe. Knock on wood.
I know I’m supposed to be living in the moment right now, but just for a few minutes let me digress and think about the future.
The sun will come up tomorrow!
Lee and I took a walk this evening and were looking around with the dogs and everything her. The sun was so beautiful in the sky as it was going down. The dogs were playing, the clouds were scuttling across so beautifully. Some of them were fast and some of them were slow. It was pretty cool.
Sunset dogs.
Then we decided to go sit in the hot tub and watch the sunset. Yes we could do that. We watched the sun making beautiful colors and imagined there being water in there and not dirt.
Mmm. Might be nice some day.
I did discover a problem. Do you know what? It’s really hard to get in and out of that hot tub. There are no stairs. And I am a short person. I think we’re going to have to work something out.
Trapped forever.
Ya know, with my workday being so long and so full of hard thinking, it’s great to just sit around and not do anything for a little while. I love my new job but wow, are the assignments I’m given in there complicated, and they have a lot of problems and issues. My job is to fix them! How about that? I may be tired, but it’s al good.
We also relaxed and hung out with friends.
Autumn sunsets are my favorite, and when I get back from my next trip, the leaves will be gone. So, I’ll save all these views for enjoyment when I’m elsewhere. These are in chronological order. Storms are coming!
More work got done on the poolside patios, but it got slowed down a bit because the Men spotted exposed rebar that happened when the workers chipped off the pool edges.
The beach are looks good, though.
So, they made some concrete and fixed it. They even dug up some areas to check. I’m sure that didn’t go over well, but it will make the Pool of Dreams last longer.
Fixed now.
I was impressed at how much work it took to build steps from one level to another. These are going to be STURDY. No corners are cut. And wow, they measured a lot.
Checking the stair measurements.
There was more pounding, including a manual pounder for smaller spaces. This patio ain’t going nowhere.
It does the job.
We were happy to see drainage pipes in the retaining walls they’re building. Lee approved big time.
You can sorta see the little pipes.
So, that was today. I worked a lot and then hugged all the horses. Ahh.
Even I got petted. A lot. I love Suna.
Enjoy more work in progress!
Working on steps
The edge. There will be a nice step down.
More repaired rebar
Beginning the retaining wall.
All the steps and walls start in a trench.
Working on steps
We had a beautiful sunset and moonrise to enjoy while feeding horses and planning future improvements. Ranch life is pretty good.
Oh, sniff. It’s so hard when you have to send your teens off for further education. They look like such wide-eyed babies, even when they are dapple gray quarter horse colts. And moving them into their dorms can be a real struggle. That was true for Drew today as well.
My baby heads off to training land. Look at those eyes.
Now, of course we are really glad it’s been raining a bit for the past few days. But, this morning was the Big Day that we were scheduled to take Drew off for training, and Apache also had a lesson scheduled. I knew the trainer doesn’t cancel lessons unless it’s raining at the time, so I went ahead and got Apache and Drew loaded into the trailer, while a steady drizzle fell. Apache was rather annoyed, and let me know. But, in he went, and I even figured out how to lock the door that separates the horses in the trailer, too.
Drew went in, too, though he entered as if he was jumping a hurdle. What a good boy. Right as we were getting leaving, we found out it was raining at the trainer’s house, so we parked again and sat on the porch, watching the rain. Apache was not a happy boy. Stomp, stomp. Sara gave us her appointment time, so we were able to head out later.
I don’t want to get out, sorry. But I appreciate the gentle pressure.
Now Drew was the star of the show. First, he had to get out of the trailer. You may recall that he is not really great at the exiting part of trailering. I was hoping he could have a good experience exiting today, with professional help.
I’m thinking of getting out, so I can hang out with the cute dog, and that sorta nice lady.
My dream came true, as the trainer patiently encouraged him to get off, without yelling or punishing him. He got closer and closer, becoming quite curious about what was outside, not scared! After about 15 minutes, he jumped out, and immediately started sniffing the poop of new horses. MMM.
Ooh, so many new smells. I think there are many friends here.
But, he was NOT there for fun. He was already at school! He got a great lesson on keeping out of the space of the human he’s with. He only took a few big corrections until he was getting the idea and needing much less correction. He went from tense to relaxed, too. It was great to watch, and I learned a lot.
I’m not getting it yet.
He went to his new paddock happily and tried to make friends with a mare. He did better than we thought he would. I think he liked it just fine. The trainer remarked that he was smart, learned quickly, and not a spooky boy. I was proud, even though I didn’t give birth to him; I just brought him home after the family found him for me!
Distracted
Figuring it out
Getting it.
Education time!
What happened to Apache, you ask? He finally got to get out of the trailer, and we had a short lesson in the same kind of thing Drew was learning, only he was a bit better at it. He should be, since I’ve been working on it, right? He got to eat a bit of grass and got some attention, so he got to feeling better. He loaded much better that time, so I’m glad he had a positive experience in the end.
I was busy walking Apache, so no photos of him. Here’s a happy egret enjoying a freshly filled pond.
I really miss Drew already. It felt weird not to feed him this evening. I keep looking for him in the field, too. I guess I got used to him pretty fast! But I have great hopes for him and for what he will learn when he’s in training. I want to spend many years together, so having a good start is important.
That’s what I asked myself when I went out to check on the Pool of Dreams after work. It’s looking very sculptural.
The flat area is our “beach” section, where you can bask in shallow water, or if you’re a dog, slurp.
They’ve been working on the rebar framework for the pool for a couple of days now. The idea is they make a ten-inch grid on all the surfaces. That’s for the gunnite to stick to when they build the shell of the pool.
The hot tub looks really cool. The part you can see through will be the waterfall. Ahh.
I learned from the men in the family why the rebar sits on bricks. It can’t touch the dirt, or it will rust and degrade and cause problems. They thought it was gonna do that and got all worried. But, the pool boss guy assured them anything touching dirt would go away when the frame was done. Yep.
You can see the bricks from this angle. You can also see where they are making a seating ledge in the deep end, for sitting and drinking wine.
It’s been fun watching the shape of the pool come to life. I’m figuring out where the skimmers will be, where all the fancy lights will be, and stuff like that.
What it looked like yesterday.
I also found out that because our fire feature will be propane, not natural gas, we can’t put those fancy glass rocks in it. We have to use lava rock. Why? Because propane is heavier than LP gas, and it would get trapped under the small pieces of glass. It would go boom. Not good.
And there’s always the sky.
We enjoy sitting and watching the clouds and animals now that the evenings are cooling down. It sure helps with the anxiety, which is better today.
Carlton really wanted to get into the disabled machine (its track thing burst).
Tomorrow is a big day for me, so send me lots of positive energy if you have any to spare. As a reward, I’ll share some pictures of my animal buddies. It is so pleasant outside with clouds, a cool breeze, and normal September temperatures!
Been a busy work day, so here’s a quick update. Today a big pile of gravel showed up. They also covered all those water lines coming from the future pool controls.
Gravel in rear. Lee keeping an eye out.
Lee was nice enough to bring me samples of the material in the gravel. They look like they, too, could have once been ocean, especially the one on the right.
Yes, my guest towel is cute.
What they did with the gravel was fill in where the water lines are, I’m guessing to protect them.
Yay, woman workers today.
They used sandbags to hold the gravel. That’s good, since I think we will be getting some rain from Hurricane Nicholas.
The area at right is the “beach” entry.
The other main thing they did was get all the holes covered, so that’s why the machine is going. If I said that already, we’ll, it’s been a long day! I even crammed in a writing workshop at lunch!
It’s time for another post with mostly photos. The rainy day brought a lot of sights, from a bird and insects I’d never seen before to animals dealing with water. That’s right, the title of this post isn’t an insensitive ableist phrase, I actually saw a cuckoo!
In the center is a yellow-billed cuckoo!
I knew we had them here, but I’d never seen a cuckoo before. It must have been recovering from the most recent downpour. I read that these birds are called storm birds, because they tend to sing after a storm. This one wasn’t singing.
Close up.
The other fun part of today was enjoying the wet animals. Poor Fiona thought she was trapped in one of the pens until Apache walked over and showed her it wasn’t a lake.
I’m outa here!
Here are some other images from around the pens.
I found the dry area
This will dry out fast
I just stood out in the rain.
That’s a damp pasture
Scary clouds
The cows and an egret friend
Moody meadow
There goes the rain
Here are my insect finds. most are new to me, but not the fire ants. They messed up my foot night before last.
Fire ants. They want to kill me.
Clemens’ Grass tube worm moth
Brown rove beetle
Variegated fritillary
Spotted orb weaver
The other side of the orb weaver
I’ll close with more moody weather photos. It was a pretty interesting day after all.
Yesterday was not only our third anniversary of Vlassic arriving at our ranch, but it was Lughnasadh or Lammas, the early harvest festival in the Celtic tradition I enjoy observing (among many traditions).
This is our fun wheel of the year calendar we hang on the wall. You rotate it to put the current season on top. From sacredsource.com
One thing people do for this celebration is thank Mother Nature for her bounty. Today we’re thanking her for a surprise rain event that’s filled up the little pond and made some good puddles.
Lee’s new and improved drainage system also works!
We had already had an inch of welcome rain by the time I went out this morning, and we’ve had more heavy showers since. Wow, we might have the creek flowing well into this month! It had started to dry up from the previous rain, but this is a nice reprieve!
View out my window.
It’s a good thing Lee got lots of dirt moved around and made the bigger drainage pipes yesterday. His new pond might have gotten messed up.
Making a better path.
When he got overheated, he could sit and listen to his fountain, which makes it worthwhile!
Making things smooth. The rain will help!
I’m glad the horses are getting a free bath, and sure hope it dries out by afternoon! The rain has killed my ability to upload or download, so my work, both paid and voluntary, is hosed. The joys of rural life!
Note to grasshopper: that’s a fake plant. Hope it starts growing soon.
Enjoy whatever you’re celebrating this time of year. I’m going to rejoice in the fact that it’s only 77 F outside!
Happy 3 years to V. He is my biggest blessing of the season. Also, his nose seems to be healing.
So, yesterday it didn’t rain but a little. Last night, though, a huge storm came up just before dawn, and there was lightning really near the house. This made for some scared dogs!
Didn’t look much better this morning.
Poor Penney was right on top of me. Everyone else was under the bed. It was scary for us!
We did get a break this morning, so between meetings I was able to go out and feed my guys and the chickens. Sadly, Barbara didn’t make it through the night. Poor dear. I hope to get another one like her, though.
The scalped back yard and more rain (wiggly things are tomato stakes)
Last night’s storm brought over an inch of rain. The second wave, which is still going on, has already brought another inch. The creek is well over its banks, and the poor horses are in mud again. We plan to get sand soon, and the very next thing in our plan is to add a lot more cover over the stalls.
We’re scared, so we are down here by Suna’s feet.
In the meantime, I don’t have a lot of hope for Trixie making it today. There’s no place to work on horses that isn’t all muddy.
I’ll just hang around in the house, with all these huddled dogs and hope it clears up. Definitely a weird July in these parts.
The Hermits' Rest 