I’m just muddling through, but it’s a successful muddle, I guess. Most things I intended to accomplish today got accomplished, so I’m calling it good.
I even learned how to erase ugly power lines and make phone photos unnaturally bright.
Anyway, I muddled through making my hair more blue and did a particularly crappy job of it. I wish I could get to the back of my head more easily. I should pay my hair lady to do it next time.
Sorta blue. This shows me taking a regular photo and making it portrait mode.
Could my day get more exciting? Sure. I bought food for the very small Thanksgiving meal I will cook Thursday and was friendly to everyone I encountered. Why not? I do hope I don’t have to drive to Temple any more this week, though. People drive weird. Everywhere.
This is supposedly rose gold. Well, the camera a fun new toy, even if it isn’t the fanciest phone one.
I would have taken lots of bird photos today, but the memory card was hiding (not really—Lee had it). So I enjoyed the binoculars a lot. This evening I must have spent five minutes watching a female Cardinal chowing down on juicy, black greenbrier berries. Like I’ve said before, our woods provides plenty of bird food.
I’d take some if you have it to me. Sad phone photo.
That’s about all the excitement other than bird stuff. Horse’s are fine but still muddy, and the fowl are enjoying their daily food as usual. Lee, the dogs, and I are also content.
Penney is very content. She loves Lee’s porch chair.
Just a quick hello from my fancy new phone to say I’m about to crash. I had many errands to do today, since I am not allowed to work this week. All but grocery shopping occurred but everything took longer than expected thanks to a nice rainy day.
I could fit in my birding station to watch the rain until it got windy.
First I indulged myself and went to Michael’s, the craft store. I try to go as seldom as possible but I needed a few things, like spray sealant for my silly painted rocks, more paint, and embroidery scissors, because I lost my RV pair. I had a good time looking at odd Christmas ornaments and such.
After the rain were cool clouds.
Next got my phone, which is an iPhone 17 Air. It’s very light. I still liked my other phone but it had some issues, so here I am with this golden one. This camera is a little better, too—not as good as the Pro, but I’m pleased. The new phone also came in very fast. I’d ordered it Friday evening and it arrived today. I let the young man at the store put the front cover on. I always screw that up.
Then I headed off for my mammogram. I’m a good person who occasionally does hard things. The new machines don’t hurt as much but I forgot that I have an allergic reaction to either their disinfectant or the machine, so I got an unpleasant boob rash. The technician gave me antihistamines. I was fine.
I quickly went home to set the new phone up, but it refused to comply when asked to download from the cloud. Since I got partially started, I had to spend HOURS unable to text, get calls, or check Facebook. Argh.
Sunset calmed me down, even though I was on my horse.
Nonetheless all is well. I made it to Apache’s lesson though he was filthy with mud and still damp from the rain. I just took out his burs and loaded him up. It’s good we went, since I was dying to see Tarrin’s new arena cover. It’s great, and didn’t scare Apache at all!
Riding in the arena.
Ooh, the other thing I did today was iron on my bird patches I got at the Master Naturalist conference. My Scissortail on my jeans is perfect. You can see the heron on a denim shirt in the horse photo.
It’s gorgeous.
Whew. Not working is tiring.
(I’m glad Tarrin took pictures for me today, or I’d have very little to share!)
Lee and I have been watching lots and lots of Star Trek series for the past many months. We watch one entire series and then move on to another. So far we have watched or rewatched Picard, Enterprise, Discovery, The Next Generation, and Strange New Worlds. we have now gotten into Deep Space 9. We skipped The Original Series (TOS) for reasons I’ll explain later.
Why do we do this? An easy answer would be that it’s not taking place now, and races solve their problems in that universe. It’s a pleasant diversion.
So are birds. Today we have a Brown-headed Cowbird.
I don’t know about Lee’s answer for watching these, but my answer turns out to be deeper. I started watching Star Trek TOS when it first went into repeats after the show ended. I couldn’t watch it before, because Gainesville, Florida didn’t have an ABC station back then. Yep. We only had CBS, NBC, and PBS. Very bad PBS.
And we had birds. Mom and I watched a lot of birds.
Reruns aired right after school, and I’d get in the phone with my friend Patti to dissect each episode as soon as it was over. We bought the big book with summaries of all the episodes in it and annotated our copies with our favorite scenes or sayings. We were very serious. Of course I still have the book.
It’s hard to take ST too seriously
After I moved away I watched it with new friends, avidly collecting the James Blish paperback books rehashing each episode. I read them until they fell apart. You can see why I have no need to watch that series again.
What I now realize was happening was exactly what many people feared would happen to the youth of America. I was sucked into believing every not-so-subtle criticism of the oppressive aspects of the USA at the time and slowly but surely became who I am now. Yes, Gene Roddenberry helped me pull together my morals, ethics, and political leanings. Thanks, Gene. You made me progressive.
Gene, that subversive radical dreamer!
And nothing makes me happier than to briefly slip into the universe those characters live in. I feel like I’m home with my imaginary family. Sure, they have a lot of battles and shootouts but they are usually so bad that you have to laugh. I like that people and cultures screw up, just like here.
Anyway, I’m not ashamed to be a Star Trek fan and can easily see why some folks are not. That’s fine; they have the Yellowstone universe to enjoy.
Picard approves of his rock.
Now, there is a lot of silliness in Star Trek, some bad acting, and way too many time travel/other dimensions plot lines. I think the writers over the last 50+ years all really like time travel for easy storytelling. And I surely like some series better than others, but we plan to watch them all, even the cartoons.
As you can see, I have Star Trek on my mind.
This leads me to express my opinion on the current series, Strange New Worlds. I have heard it gets mixed reviews. But who cares? I love it even more than I loved TOS as a kid. The characters seem much less stereotypical, they have interesting experiences and real traumas. Plus you get the backstory to TOS. Captain Pike is so much more than a guy in a wheelchair thing! And his hair! The younger versions of all the beloved characters are so much fun and it’s cool to see how they all met.
Also the hair jokes.
But here’s where I’m controversial. I just love the weird episodes. My absolute favorite is the one where they act out the history of Star Trek from the beginning as part of some holodeck issue. There were enough Easter Eggs in that one to fill many baskets. When I realized Number One was playing Lucille Ball and Captain Pike was Roddenberry I about fell over laughing. Then Uhura delivers a speech about the real mission of the series. Sniff.
I also got a kick out of the musical episode. You just never know what’s next with that series. I’m glad there will be a few more episodes before Pike’s accident.
I grew up near beaches and I like them okay, though I prefer marshy land near beaches, which have more interesting birds.
Beach sunsets are pretty fine! I do love Hilton Head.
But I really love mountains and always have. I looked forward to visiting Chattanooga, where my paternal grandmother lived, each summer so we could look at streams, go through tunnels, and drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains.
As an adult, I’ve treasured my visits to other mountains in all weather. There are really good birds, too, and each area is so different! if I were rich, I’d head right over to Breckenridge and hike and snowshoe and be just fine. Or maybe Ruidoso, since it’s in another state I love.
Sedona, also fine rocks.
Just dreaming. I’m here in Texas looking at a small hill. At least I have all these birds!
Look. I finally took bird photos you can identify as birds. Eastern Phoebe.
Off topic, but I enjoyed watching a huge flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds roosting and then departing en masse this morning. I had the good camera (Cameron EOSR5 Mark II) and telephoto lens in the birding area. Distance shots are from the phone camera.
So many birdsGood camera viewClick to enlarge—you can see each bird!Bye!Supervisor
I also dragged the camera to the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary to practice close-ups. I got lots of chickadees and titmice at the feeders and a few others. I think a couple are pretty good. At least you can see details on them. I’m gonna practice this week so my camera muscles will be all strong for next weekend. Anyway, here are cute titmice.
I can’t choose between these two Both are my favorite Eating
And here are just a few Carolina Chickadees. They pose well.
I also got a couple of nice shots of water dripping into the birdbath. Look carefully and you will see many honeybees from the nearby hives.
I took lots of photos of new Wildscape plants, but that will be in a Master Naturalist blog. But here are a couple of insects!
Painted ladyFunereal duskywing Honeybee and carpenter beeGulf Fritillary Honeybee hiding in salvia Another fritillary
So, whee. Mountains are great, but no matter where you are, there are birds, insects, and plants to explore.
Two meanings to this: one is I’m still stumped as to why my mental health tanked so hard—I couldn’t even be trying myself to go to my riding lesson today. I was too woozy to feel safe riding even good old Apache.
That meant I got to be home for sunset and the welcome rain that followed.
The second way I’m stumped is good, though. I now have a very large stump in my birding area!
Deceased elm tree.
This tree was a hazard on a main road and had to be removed. Lucky for me, the tree’s pieces were destined for our burn pile, and I had mentioned how cool it would be to use a large slice as a bird feeding platform.
This was the first piece I saw. Nowhere near as big as the one I got.
I was working on the porch this morning so I could also watch birds, when I heard the unmistakeable sound of our ancient backhoe approaching. It was beating the stump!
The regular tractor couldn’t carry this!
I have to give them credit, they got me the best stump ever. It’s huge! And when it gets trimmed it will have two heights of at least somewhat level surface that the dogs can’t get to. And since it’s inside our fence, curious cows won’t be able to mess with any feeding or watering stuff I put up there.
The plan is to anchor the birdbath on there, too, so it won’t fall over.
I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet. I usually don’t feed birds, since we have plenty for them to eat here, even in winter, but it might be fun to get some photos.
Trying to show me compared to the stump.
It’s fun to think about, anyway. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I can sit in my birding station on dry pillows (because I put them in the storage bin!) and look at the stump. You know, when I read that sentence it occurs to me that it sounds dull as heck. Oh well.
A dull photo of doves roosting before the storm.
I will prove I’m more boring than you’d imagine by telling you the evening’s excitement was when Lee realized the rain on our dumpster made the lights in the house reflect off it. We thought it was mysterious lights in the empty field across the road.
It looked less like a dumpster and more like spooky lights in person.
I also heard a turkey in the woods. Now that was exciting. Connie didn’t gobble back at it, though.
Sure, today was both a packed work day and a day of dealing with those anxiety symptoms I abhor, but the horses didn’t do anything to deserve neglect.
We turn our backs on you!
It turns out that when the farrier left yesterday, he turned all the horses out of the pens, then like a good rancher, he shut the gate he let them out of, because he’d found it shut. I didn’t figure that out until late afternoon today, which was really not good on my part.
I turn my back on you, too.
You see, I fed and watered them in the morning, so I just visually checked on them yesterday afternoon, when they were all happily eating the hay in their round bale.
Same thing happened this morning; they were way out in the pasture and looked fine. I never checked the pens other than to note what species of dove was on the upper poles (European Collared Doves).
I intended to feed both them and the chickens early in the afternoon, but as soon as I walked out the door, I had to go back in and help someone. The second time I walked out, I was distracted by a huge tree stump that was headed for the burn pile, but did get the chickens fed before another call.
Huge (already dead and a danger in town)
By the time I finally got out to turn the water off and feed horses, I was confused to see them standing around outside the pens. Then I realized what happened. Poor horses! Luckily it didn’t rain or storm today and they have a water trough outside the pens. So, they were fine.
Dusty plodded right over to his spot and indicated he was ready for his senior feed.
Tuesday is always hard because I start work early and end late, so there was no exercise time, but I did check all their feet and was happy to see Apache’s eye looked good. He’d gotten a piece of hay in it and I’d been treating it.
No drainage or goo coming out. Yay.
Being horses, they weren’t upset with me, just happy for food and bur removal. They always cheer me up.
Dusty has to be sure he gets all his “gravy.” He’s a wet chewer.
I think I got more non-spam calls today than I usually get in a month, but I enjoyed helping folks at work, and was happy to get calls from my doctor’s office about getting something to help with these blasted chest pains.
Looking at these guys helps, but I need meds. Do notice Spice’s tail. She’s an active swisher.
Let’s hope tomorrow is nice and calm, with happy pills and maybe some rain!
I’ll be sitting right here in the morning, unless it’s raining hard!
Okay, it’s not a city; it’s a small town. And I no longer go into town very often. I’m avoiding humanity. Plus many of my favorite places are no longer there, sigh (probably because I stopped going anywhere optional).
But there are still a few places I like in Cameron, Texas, so I must choose one. It isn’t very hard, basically because I truly love pecan sticky buns. The only place you can get them is at the local bakery!
See, I even have a dusty sticker in my office.
Shirley Mae’s has a cute playroom my son built, many upgrades done by Chris, and it’s where Anita and I used to get coffee and snacks together before she stopped taking any time off work. Lots of good memories there, and the owners are also great.
Where the sticky buns live (photo from their Facebook page)
I really could have used a baked item this morning, since I drove all the way to the courthouse for jury duty, only to have it canceled right as I arrived. I’d called the jury duty line before I left, and it did say I had to show up. So, 99 people and I drove from around the county just to be good citizens.
Nice building, though.
It’s typical for all the cases to settle before trial here. It costs a lot to do jury trials, so they try to plea bargain everything. I get it. And apparently this kind of thing happens often in other places, too. So, I just wish the bakery was open on Mondays for sad potential jurors.
On another note
I’d say all is well that ends well, but I have to admit I feel mentally unbalanced. Last night I started having severe anxiety symptoms, the chest pains that you hope aren’t really a heart attack. (Watch said my pulse was fine.) Then last night, I had a horrible nightmare that had me screaming for my mom and woke Lee up.
I wonder what’s bothering me? Not this wheel bug!
Today I have continued to feel anxious and pained in my chest. Of course I have no more Xanax, because I haven’t felt really bad since this time last year. What’s weird is I haven’t felt no frightening new/old President to concern me. Things are fine as far as I can tell.
I hope I figure this out!
And don’t worry; I’ve dealt with anxiety my whole life, just less in the past few years. I can handle it with all that breathing and meditation and stuff.
Of the services that deliver packages to our house, one used to be my favorite, FedEx. They always brought my stuff up the driveway and once the driver helped us when a member of the family fell and got overheated. The USPS woman is just fine, while UPS had a woman who wouldn’t bring anything to the house, so I had to go tote them (like horse feed—heavy).
Enjoy my latest mandala. It’s bright.
Suddenly, starting a few months ago, FedEx decided that our driveway didn’t exist and started dumping packages at the next driveway that leads to the cow operation barn and my son’s cabin. It’s usually in long grass. I’ve been annoyed.
Oh look. I have moody brown nails, matching how I felt about my deliveries.
I thought I’d fixed it by getting online help from their Facebook page. I was wrong. I was probably talking to a bot. My packages continued to go to the wrong place. I despaired of ever getting the problem fixed since calling and website checking did not help.
Nope, none of this happened. I could not track the case. Grr.
But yay! On Thursday I had gotten the mail then was out working on the round pen when I saw it! The dang truck was dropping something off next door. I dropped the stuff in my hands and sprinted (translation: jogged briskly) to the road to catch the driver before the truck passed. My quads still hurt.
But I did it! I got the guy to stop. He started to “diffuse” me immediately. I wonder if he realized that pissed me off more. I was just trying to say my driveway is not where he dropped off packages. I felt justified in telling him how hard it was to tell FedEx their GPS software was wrong.
Indeed, it was. Whoever took over for the previous drivers (nice woman and man) had moved the pin on their Maps software to the wrong driveway, because like Apple Maps, it doesn’t acknowledge our driveway for some reason. Apple Maps is annoying that way, thinking there’s a driveway from the other driveway. That’s been gone for years.
The red line is our driveway, where the mailbox is. The yellow path is not a road.
The upshot of it all is that the guy moved the pin and added a note. I’m patiently awaiting the next delivery. But I think I finally triumphed. I hope.
I have as much hope as this out-of-season pink evening primrose.
It’s a good thing I like naps, since I’m very good at falling asleep at this point in my life. I had a very nice nap on the porch this afternoon with the sun keeping me warm and a breeze to keep me from being too warm. Other than waking myself up snoring from being in an awkward position, it was great.
And the good news is that I still had time for horse activities before sunset.
I did have a pretty busy morning after a leisurely birding hour and a little walk. Lots of bluebirds were out competing for grasshoppers, which is always a joy to watch.
Phoebes were also very vocal.
I can’t say my morning project tired me out, because after Chris did the hard work of pounding the hanger into the ground, putting up this cool solar birdbath was very easy. And the best part is the bubbler is quiet and doesn’t interfere with bird listening. I hope birds use it. This evening the sparrows were eyeing it.
It turns off at night and when the water runs low.
I spent the rest of the morning doing volunteer work at the Wildscape and bird sanctuary projects. The Master Naturalist volunteers I have done a great job clearing out the space so new plants can go in.
Not the previous riot of plants! The succulent area still looks good. This day flower escaped the weeding
I enjoyed the sights, including a shy kitty and a chicken who laid an egg right in front of me.
The killer rose has beautiful blossomsCarpenter bee actionCatherine and Kim ready to attack meCrouching kittyChickenHer eggSalvia
I had a great time at the bird sanctuary, where there were at least 20 species out and about. Just the chickadees and titmice were at the feeder, but I saw and heard many more.
The feedersBonus squirrel
After chatting with others at the benches, I went to lunch with the group and had a very good time. I’m glad a was brave enough to do a group thing.
Jackie pretending to investigate a feeder while Debi looks on.
All the mice were out of the chicken feed box, so I can clean it out tomorrow. I guess I’ll need another nap then! Less rodent worry meant tonight’s sunset walk was calmer and I could enjoy listening to the Great Horned Owl and friends for a while. All is well.
The Hermits' Rest 