This is just to see if I can get my old Surface Pro to post using Bluetooth, because it won’t connect to my phone hotspot. News? It rained a little just now!
Well, it won’t let me post, but it saved the draft. It will be nice to have a keyboard to use in the tack room, anyway.
I’ll write more in the Master Naturalist blog about this (update, I forgot to do so), but I did enjoy a visit to the Texas A&M Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections this morning. My friend Pamela and I drove over and met up with another Master Naturalist and her granddaughter, who’s high school age, and enjoyed it as much as we did, I think. We were sad that more of our group couldn’t join us.
Our guides were curators Heather Prestridge, an ichthyologist, and Gary Voelker, an ornithologist. They were informal with our small group, informative, and entertaining as well. I had a blast learning about how many specimens they have, how long the collection has been growing (since the 1930s), and how they preserve the animals for research.
The collections of herps (snakes, lizards, frogs, etc.) are immense. It’s cool to see where they all come from. There is much from Texas but also around the world. They are preserved in formaldehyde.
The fish were fascinating as well. My favorite was the box fish. There were just so many to categorize. Wow. There’s a lot of work for their grad students and volunteers! The other thing they do with the specimens is take tissue samples and freeze them (really cold) for future research on DNA and the like. What a resource this is!
Of course the birds fascinated me. I was probably really annoying with all my questions but wow, there were things here I’d never seen before, like the Hoatzin. What the heck. This bird’s young have claws on their wings!! It’s also called a stink bird, because it digests food in its crop, which is smelly. It’s a really different bird!
Dr. Voelker was great at sharing information about the birds. We saw the largest and smallest owls and an awesome variety of kingfishers, some that were an indescribable blue. Africa has some darn colorful birds.
Look at these roseate spoonbills. They are so many shades of pink. and I was fascinated to see the bill up close. Such specialization!
There was a lovely domed collection of hummingbirds that had been donated to Heather. Someone had it in their family for years!
I’ll spare you the details but we learned about 3D imaging and printing of specimens. They find what’s in the animals’ stomachs and can ID them. Huh.
They didn’t talk much about boring old mammals but I checked them out.
Believe it or not, I managed to get hungry after all those dead things. Good thing we’d arranged to meet our friend, Lynn at a restaurant at the old airport terminal. Ah. A nice restaurant. And airplanes! What a good time.
Some of my things from Austin I don’t miss at all, while others have left a bit of a hole in my heart. Today some of my favorite things returned and it feels good.
I had most of my needlepoint wall hangings at the Bobcat house. This one was in my bedroom (as were the other old friends). I made it in 1993 when Declan was a baby. Today he brought it back to me.
The six-sided frame was made by my ex and his friend. They worked so hard in the garage of our sweet house in Champaign, Illinois, ciphering the angles, cutting the wood, and staining the frame. This may be the only thing he ever made for me, so I’ll treasure it always.
These two pictures I made after Anita got here, I think when we were in the casita. I made them for the Bobcat house, though. They were in my bedroom. The fun donkey has a yellow background to go with my old bedroom, which no doubt is white now! I really enjoyed making these, and I’m glad I’ll get to look at them every time I go upstairs from now on. Lee was very kind to hang them so quickly!
My knitting friends know that these two old friends are among my favorite things, and I’ve missed them! It’s an umbrella swift and ball winder that take loose hanks of yarn and turns them into pull-skeins, which we like to call “yarn cakes.”
You may recall that the yarn for the macho granny square project came in hanks. I wound the first two by hand, which my watch thought was an elliptical machine workout.
I mentioned that somewhere in the stuff from Austin were these useful items, but they were hard to find, since the boxes weren’t organized. Well, by gosh, they’re organized now and my equipment and art showed up! It’s going to make finding things for the pool house and another project that’s coming up a lot easier! Maybe I’ll find some old kitchen friends!
Meanwhile, we’ve been getting some pretty good rain. There is even some water in the front pond again, which means there’s been runoff. If the predictions are right, we’ll be back to green grass and full ponds next week.
Or, knowing central Texas weather, it will flood soon. Our old friends, the floods. Better than droughts and fires!
Off to start a fun weekend. Wow. I am becoming a little more social!
And it might even rain again! The bottom of my screen says, “rain coming,” and it’s raining at my coworker in Cedar Park’s house. We are so excited about the mere idea of rain that he sent an IM that he heard thunder.
It actually rained .37″ last night, complete with much thunder and lightning that the dogs didn’t like. It was music to MY ears, however!
I’m amazed at the signs of life I keep seeing this summer. Lee says this is probably going to be the driest year since we started measuring (we were not here every day during 2011, so we don’t have daily records for then). Trees are turning brown, which is scary, but some things are doing well.
Ruellia is especially happy this year, according to my Master Naturalist friend. It’s more of a desert plant, which makes sense. Some hardy non-natives are hanging around. Yesterday, I got some photos of crepe myrtles, spider lilies and one very confused rain lily at a house we’re working on.
And today I saw some zyzotes milkweed looking strong and happy, along with broomweed, velvet weed, and frog fruit.
Plus, something smelled very, very good over by the dry ole creek, and I realized it was thousands of tiny balloon weed flowers in the creek bed. White flowers do tend to smell good, I’ve found. I guess I’d never been around so many of them before, so I never noticed the lovely aroma. These vines don’t usually catch your attention until autumn when the fascinating seed pods appear.
Enjoy the photos and hope the promised additional rain comes here. We need it so badly.
I heard it was recently International Granny Square Day. So glad I was working on some at the time. I have two rows done on the current project, which consists mostly of granny squares divided diagonally into two halves.
It ends up looking like a quilt. I shared the yarn one day last week. To start, I colored in the pattern with markers. Of course I changed some.
I’m stopping here until the yarn for the heart arrives. I do have the other camo yarn I can turn into balls and swatch with. Sigh. The ball winder and swift are still packed up, somewhere. But I can wind by hand and it will count as exercise!
Speaking of which, it was literally like an OVEN outside today. Neither I nor the horses were up to running around. It was 102° and extra humid. So I got my exercise in the pool. I swim weird but it counts!
The good news is real rain should be coming tomorrow or Friday. I will believe it when I see it, but it’s the most hope since early May. I think we need it, judging from the ground.
Sorry I’m so dull right now. All the interesting stuff I can’t write about. Oh, here’s a tidbit: I’m officially renewed and get to stay at Dell another year. Income! Yay!
I hope you’re finding good things in your life. They’re in there somewhere! Today I enjoyed a sunrise. Ok. The sunrise. There was just one.
It was pretty in every direction.
I was surrounded by color!
That was my idea of goodness. No day that starts this pretty could be all bad. Even when you realize your pond has gone dry.
There’s stuff blooming, though. And I found a passion fruit.
I even have a new friend, the garden spider who guards the henhouse. She decided to build her nest right across the door. I walked through it. Yuck. And she’d started rebuilding by the time I finished feeding the chickens. She’s good, though. I got to watch her deal with a grasshopper that got in her web. In mere seconds, it was all wrapped up and probably wondering what the heck just happened.
One more bit of goodness was that I saw an unfamiliar bird land on the back pond, the one with water. Then another. It was big, but not as big as a vulture or heron. But it looked like a heron…something was different about its head. Sure enough, it IDed as a tricolored heron! Yay! Now I’ve seen five: great blue, great egret, green heron, cattle egret, and the tricolor.
That’s plenty of good. Plus I got out of the house to go look at houses this afternoon AND ate dinner out with Kathleen. So glad she’s recovering! To celebrate, enjoy dog photos!
This summer, I’ve been learning a lot about slowing down my life and being okay with not having to “do something” every moment of my life (says the woman blogging while waiting for her horses to eat).
One thing I’ve been appreciating is tasks that are repetitive and require just enough attention that you can’t dwell on things, but little enough attention that you can “zone out” and bring your focus to the present. Shoveling horse poop is a great example.
I really enjoy shoveling the poop and taking it out of the pens, though it’s one of those tasks like laundry and vacuuming; you’ll have to do it again soon.
It just feels good to have a routine. I feel like such a little ranch person going out every morning to care for the chickens and going out every evening to get eggs. And every day feeding horses. And getting the mail. Just having a rhythm to life.
That’s enough for today. Thanks for being there!
Yeah, yeah, non-horsey people. It’s another horse post. I’m very proud of what my horses and I have been learning, though, and I want to be able to look back on our good days and smile. I need smiles and kindness, and I got those in huge doses yesterday!
We just had the best lesson yesterday! So much learning and progress, and we all had fun! Drew is making great progress in trotting and cantering in a calm and upright manner. And I am making good progress correcting his tendency to barge into me, which concerns Tarrin. I got all up in his face just like she does. Woot.
I’m extra proud of Drew, because he learned a new skill today, dragging an object. I enjoyed watching how carefully Tarrin introduced this, so it would be a positive experience for Drew. I probably learned more than he did!
The deal is that the sight of the thing being dragged, along with the sound of it, can unnerve a young horse. By first just dragging it herself and only attaching it to the saddle after Drew got used to it, Tarrin set him up for success.
Drew showed some signs of concern, but didn’t get really upset. He got chances to inspect the rope and tire, too. By the end of the exercise, he wasn’t phased even when the rope touched his flank. Yay Drew! Here are more pictures of him learning.
Apache and I both learned a lot, too. I’m figuring things out and doing way better with my riding form, even if I do look like a lump still in photos. And Apache is getting much closer to a controlled trot to canter transition. It’s a struggle for him. Many years of not having a clue are hard to undo.
We did a lot on the ground and mounted, then headed back to all his “scary” spots, where he got upset by a calm old horse and then was a bit jumpy. But we handled it. Both Lee and Tarrin were kind enough to take some pictures of us. It helps me analyze what I need to work on.
We had some success and I was happy. He also was! At one point when he figured out we were asking him to canter, he stopped and looked so energized that Tarrin said he looked like a magnificent Arabian for a brief moment. For me it was the look in his eyes, as if to say, “I did it!” It’s so nice to see him enjoying his learning.
Here is lumpy Suna working with nervous Patchy on the approach to the scary trailer.
I finished this project. It’s so ridiculous it’s cute. Random yarns that are no longer available to buy, and much patience. It’s Augustina from a Noro magazine. You, too, could buy a kit.
Mine is big. It’s ok. It’s soft and warm and I’ll enjoy it around the house this winter. The colors look great! Bonus surprise.
Lee made fancy photos for me. I like that I’m wearing shorts and the dogs are inspecting it. enjoy my garment. I un-cropped the pictures do my head would not be cut off.
Oh yes. Yarn for the project after my blanket for Kathleen arrived! It’s for a very macho toddler. Camo and swampy green. Gonna be CUTE.
Someone asked what kids of birds are still hanging out at the ranch. In addition to the ones I mentioned yesterday there are some interesting ones.
It cheered me up greatly this morning to see this family. I love these beautiful birds, and I’m glad they fledged at least one baby!
The other birds we’ve been seeing are our friendly carrion eaters, who are probably pretty well fed these days. This morning (and yesterday) a large group of black vultures was enjoying the pond behind the house.
The vultures really like the island made by the tree at right. There were still a few late this afternoon. They were joined by a big ole crested caracara, too. That’s some free and easy bird watching!
It didn’t even crack 100° today, so Apache and I went on a nice long ride. It was the longest solo ride we ever went on. We checked out all available pasture. And he was pretty good, too. I handled his one spook at an unfamiliar object and every time he wanted to turn around. It’s getting better!
And hey. I ordered an inexpensive desk chair for the tack room and built it today. Makes writing in my horse journal really snazzy. Come visit!
The Hermits' Rest 