This will be a quick one, but I can’t help but share how happy I am with the work we’re doing at the Pride Employee Resource Group I help run at work. We just sponsored a Q&A session with a trans woman who’s been a legislative activist for trans rights, and also works in the high tech industry. I was a little concerned, because the speaker has been a friend of mine for almost as long as I’ve lived in Texas. I didn’t want her to have a bad experience or feel unwelcome.
I’ll just share some lovely plants from around the office to separate my gushing pargraphs. Hydrangea.
Far from it! My heart is full of joy, and I feel like at least one little part of the world is becoming a better place every day. I served as moderator and asked my friend questions that we’d come up with, plus some of the 75+ attendees also asked really thoughtful questions, from which we all learned a lot, including the speaker.
Rock rose
People shared their thoughts and experiences respectfully, but we also laughed a lot as we enjoyed just being people getting to know each other. I really feel affirmed, welcome in my workplace, and and genuinely pleased at the kindness I could feel coming from all those square black Zoom boxes.
Japanese maple
My friend re-iterated what I always say, and what certainly shone through during today’s discussion, which is once you get to know someone as a person and you find things you have in common with them, things like gender expression fade into the background.
Beautyberry
Yep. The world is not all bad and people are not all afraid of anyone who’s different. I will try to keep remembering moments like this.
My companion on my stroll. He or she did not move as I walked right under the tree three times.
Note that I do not consider myself a poet and never have. On the other hand, I’m a writer, and words come out of my fingers like water flowing from a spring. Ooh, a simile.
My little work area of poetic inspiration
I’m bringing this up, because I heard a feature on the radio encouraging young people to submit applications for being the Texas Youth Poet Laureate. The woman promoting it pointed out that there are many types of poetry, not just the classical things, and all it takes do create poetry is to write down what’s going on with you in some sort of disciplined way.
There once was a woman called Suna Who lunched on some sushi of tuna. And as it’s her hobby, She piled on wasabi. Her face turned red as a petunia.
Yep, that’s the story of my lunch, all right. I have always loved limericks. I used to write acrostic poems, especially when my kids were little and did them in school.
A horse can be a challenging friend, Particularly when he won’t tell you his thoughts And you keep guessing what the deal is until Changed attitudes suddenly bloom and He is like the buddy you once Enjoyed, oh so long ago.
That exhausts my abilities. I’m not good at free-form, and though I love to listen to it done well, I haven’t mastered the internal rhymes and repetition in good rapping. But, the lady on the radio said to just get started by repeating “I am” over and over, and boom, you’d have a poem. Okay, then.
I am a knitter and weaver of fabric and words I am glad for all my experiences (bringing wisdom) I am braver than I ever thought I could be (take the first step) I am content with uncertainty and change (at last) I love fiercely, freely, and without expectations (so hard) I am here
Speaking of being brave, I think it’s brave to share poems you write off the top of your head in just a few minutes. But, I admit this was fun. How about you? Do you have a poem ready to spring forth?
Last night’s pool view. You can hardly tell you’re in a large city.
Apparently, we do have a pool, and it’s right behind the Bobcat Lair house in Austin. I’ve lived here part time for four years and owned the house for six, but I’d never really seen it, just glimpsed it through trees.
Look, Ma, there’s a cement pond! (as they would say on the Beverley Hillbillies)
I discovered this (just kidding, I did know there was a pool there; I simply had never seen it up close) last night when my friend Carol, from back in the Hermit Haus Redevelopment days, came over to visit. She brought some delicious food, we pulled out the good wine, and we had a lot of laughs catching up. The recent goings-on in Cameron led to much laughter.
The infinity area, with scenic view.
Now, when we had most recently walked Pickle, the neighbors informed Anita and me that the pool had indeed re-opened after a year of slumber and intense renovation. I wanted to check it out, since some of the neighbors had done most of the renovating themselves, including the lovely plantings around it, and I wanted to see it up close and in person.
You can see the moon. Once it got dark, it was really pretty. The pool edges look so nice now.
We mentioned it to Carol, and she also wanted to see it. Why, she had even brought her bathing attire along with her in case she could go swimming at the Y near her house at some point in the day. So, I donned my fabulous modest bathing suit and grabbed the towel I bought two years ago and hadn’t used yet to join her for a dip. Even though it was 8:30 pm and Carol only had fancy sandals to wear, we slipped between the houses and went down.
A cozy spot to dine, or take notes, which someone forgot about.
We were very impressed with the resurfaced pool (even though I had never seen the old version), the painted areas, and the cleaned-up limestone. The lighting is also lovely, and explains why it’s never really dark outside my bedroom window.
It’s all so clean and fancy!
It turns out the pool doesn’t close until 10, so we enjoyed the water (even Anita, who had hiccups the entire time, dipped her feet in) for quite a while. I sure wish we had made time to use this neighborhood feature before, but I figure I’ll get the most out of it while I can this summer. (Excuses include losing the key for a couple of years, being exhausted every night, and COVID.)
Don’t make me take my socks off. Our house is just to the right of the one you see behind Anita.
I really appreciate the hard work people in this neighborhood are doing to improve the aesthetics of the neighborhood. They are spending their own money, since the HOA is not inclined to do more than mow and trim.
Carol checks out the plants. That’s our house, at right. Pretty close.
Sigh, actually hanging out with your old friends is fun. Thanks to all the people who worked so hard on the COVID vaccine, too!
It’s been one of those days. Everything I tried to do so far has required at least one more step than I initially thought it would. I’m pretty darned proud of myself that I haven’t let it get to me and mostly just laughed at myself.
Apache apparently didn’t have things go his way today, either. Cattle invaded the pen where he’s been staying to become slim and sassy. He got to practice standing still, reports Sara, his guardian for a couple of days.
When I got to the Austin office, my headphones wouldn’t work. Little did I know that when I thought I fixed them, I’d only fixed the speaker part, not the microphone part, so my first meeting involved yelling until I realized the computer mic was on, not the headphones.
I tried to solve a simple problem for a colleague. He ended up having to go to another colleague, turning what was intended to be a five-minute thing unto an hour-long challenge.
I went to get my eyes examined. There were no Suna-esque glasses in the shop. I have to come back later, when the optician lady will be there to put out new ones. Sigh.
I went home and do my meetings upstairs. The computer didn’t last nearly as long as usual on battery power, so it just died in the middle of talking to someone.
Not looking forward to finding out if an expected visitor shows up.
Good thing this is all temporary, fleeting, and passing. I’ll just enjoy the moment anyway, darn it! I hope you can, too!
[Somehow, most of this post got deleted when I went to publish it before. THIS is the real story!]
I’m excited to have permission to share this story! Yesterday I got to head out to a horse breeding and training facility in our area to visit Sara’s new love interest, a large Andalusian gelding named Aragorn. She met him last week and instantly bonded with him.
True love. (He has sweat marks from being ridden)
It’s a beautiful property, and we were surprised to see a beautiful colt on the road, prancing and dancing like a fairy animal. We said we bet he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure enough, Glenn, the ranch owner, came running up to get the little guy. He was back in and coming into the barn to eat dinner by the time we got in.
That’s the culprit at right.
All the mares and foals just walk in and line up in stalls to be fed. All so well trained, and the foals were very friendly.
Dinner time!
Aragorn’s current owner bred him, so knows his history. Glenn told us lots about him and was very honest about why he is relatively affordable for a very well-bred European breed. He coughs when anxious, for example.
Getting ready to ride. These horses start our some other color, then turn gray. He looks like he was originally chestnut, like one of the colts above.
Once he got all saddled and we learned a lot about appropriate bits, Trixie showed up, and we watched Sara get a lesson in riding in the style Aragorn is used to. Sara is such a quick learner that I could tell Glenn was having fun telling her stuff and watching her figure out exactly what to do.
Teaching and learning
And, obviously, Sara had a blast as well. I got a lot of photos of the lesson that I’m going to send to her just to study her positioning and stuff, but my favorite pictures have to be the ones of Glenn gesturing, Sara working, and the two dogs who are exactly the color of the dirt, just sat and watched.
This may be my favorite
Just in case you are interested in what Aragorn can do, here are a few more pictures to click or ignore. To be honest, I just like looking at the beautiful setting of this ranch and its facilities. They are nice but not insanely fancy or anything. It’s “just right.”
Learning and enjoying her future friend.
Trixie has known Glenn a long time, but even she said she was learning some things watching him show Sara things, explaining the origin of the moves in Western dressage, and sharing history of equestrian sports. It was fascinating. And he is such a nice and generous man!
You can see the other geldings behind Sara. They were annoyed that their dinner was delayed.
The Amazing Part of the Story
After the “test drive” in Sara’s tack, we were just talking to Glenn. She asked if he did private lessons, and he said he hadn’t before, since he just retired from being an ER physician. Sara sat on Aragorn for a minute, thinking. Then she asked him, “Were you an ER physician in College Station 21 years ago?” He replied that he was.
When we were chatting (sorry for bad lighting)
She then asked if he remembered a blue roan paint colt named X that he trained. He didn’t quite remember, but said he could look it up. Sara said that was her colt she’d raised to work with before she married her children’s father. She mentioned her married name, and Glenn said that did sound familiar. So, we are pretty sure they met all that time ago when Sara had her precious colt that she had to later sell. Wow!
Back to Work
After we got over our surprise, Trixie got to work and adjusted the heck out of Aragorn. Just like with my horses, he ended up extremely relaxed. It’s always extra educational watching her work with a horse and diagnose where it has structural weaknesses and what could help it. Sara took a lot of notes.
Working on his neck
Meanwhile, I bonded with the dog and looked at all the other beautiful horses. I had no complaints whatsoever, and took lots of pictures of how they arranged their tack house, their tying mechanism and such, for reference when we get to setting up our new one.
Woof the guard dog has been busy guarding. He is very friendly to humans, though.
I knew Sara would like some “glamour shots,” so we went out and took some, even though Aragorn still had the sweat marks from her saddle pad. He is obviously fond of her already. They really had an instant bond, like he’d been waiting his whole life for her to show up.
A whole lotta love
At the end of the day, we all got to go take a look at the young stallion who was in the paddock next to Aragorn. He is most beautiful, like someone’s dream horse. They are hoping he will have a baby soon from a mare that was brought in to be bred.
I’m doing my trick. Where’s my food?
He’s been trained that he has to stand on that stump to get dinner, because he used to be pushy about his food. He was not thrilled that his food didn’t immediately show up, but he was gentle as a kitten, and apparently is a great riding horse. I’d love to see him in saddle!
The horsie gals.
We were pretty exhausted and sweaty by the time we were ready to go home, but had to take a selfie of us horse lovers in our unplanned coordinated shirts! We are a bit disheveled, but happy. I hope you enjoyed our love story with a nod to the past. I know you look forward to Aragorn coming home to Sara’s property and watching them progress in their skills.
Hey, here’s a quick update on the things going on here at the Hermits’ Rest. For one thing, a lot of mowing has been going on and a lot of shredding. The appeal of using the shredder on really high grass is that it can be done in the air-conditioned tractor. It’s good to report that all along the sides of the road and the area on the other side of the arroyo is now shredded.
We should have baled it, huh!
Two benefits to that are 1) you can see if cars are coming from the left as you leave the driveway, and 2) the ragweed has been cut down, eliminating some distress for the resident humans.
We can see clearly now!
Everything is very neat and smooth now that the wildflowers set seed and were mowed.
Well, there are still a few flowers to enjoy. Yay.
The front-end loader, who’d been grounded for a while due to a giant hole in her ancient battery, is back and huffing and puffing again, with shiny new batteries. That will make moving fencing supplies a lot easier. It was sort of rough with the little tractor.
This should keep the old guy chugging a little longer.
And, look! We have the beginnings of the horizontal rods in the pen fencing. That is really exciting! The end is near!
A finished section.
It’s cool to see how the tool to hold them evenly spaced works. How clever!
Gracie thinks the hanging spacer thing is cool, too.
I’ll be out killing more grass and supervising fencing later today after work. These long summer days are GREAT.
I’m happy it’s summer and I have a pond.
A much more exciting post should be out later today, I hope. Happy summer to all.
Compare and contrast! The smallest dog and the biggest dog.
I’m excited to have permission to share this story! Yesterday I got to head out to a horse breeding and training facility in our area to visit Sara’s new love interest, a large Andalusian gelding named Aragorn. She met him last week and instantly bonded with him.
True love. (He has marks from being ridden)
It’s a beautiful property, and we were surprised to see a beautiful colt on the road, prancing and dancing like a fairy animal. We said we bet he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure enough, Glenn, the ranch owner, came running up to get the little guy. He was back in and coming into the barn to eat dinner by the time we got in.
That’s the culprit at right.
All the mares and foals just walk in and line up in stalls to be fed. All so well trained, and the foals were very friendly.
Dinner time!
Aragorn’s current owner bred him, so knows his history. He told us lots about him and was very honest about why he is relatively affordable for a very well bred European breed. He coughs when anxious, for example.
Hooray. I’ve got my horse back! It’s sure been a long road for Apache. Last night, I saddled him up for the first time since the dang abscess, and I made sure he was doing okay in the round pen by trotting him a lot. He was deemed okay, so I mounted him while Sara got on Spice, who really didn’t seem happy, though she behaved fine. I’d say the ride wasn’t a complete success, though it wasn’t a failure, either. Apache indicated what he wanted to do instead of what I wanted, fairly strongly, a couple of times. Still, I got through it and did a good job getting him on my schedule before I got off. I did give him a nice rinse-off, which delighted him.
This morning, we got out bright and early. We were delighted to see that there were clouds in the sky and a breeze. That made everything much more pleasant. I was happy to see that he was still clean, even though I KNOW he rolled in the pens.
Today, Sara decided to see if Bonnie Pumpkin, the horse who’d hanging out with us for a while, would be ridable, and she put the bareback pad on her. I decided to use the hackamore with Apache today, and apparently, that was a good decision. After a fine warmup, Sara carefully got on Bonnie, and she was fine! Hooray!
A happy moment for all.
I got on Apache, and off we went. He was a different horse today, very responsive and calm. He didn’t break into a nervous trot once, nor did he start spinning around if I dared to ask him to turn right. He must be feeling better. We went through the dreaded line of trees, and neither horse did anything other than walk, and occasionally stop to look at something. None of the usual spots bothered him. We made an entire circle, walked over some obstacles, and then, in a shocking display of obedience, I got Apache to walk past the barn before turning to go back.
Fiona wanted to be in a picture, too.
Sara and I both had FUN. That was so great. I felt so good (and not overly hot) that I decided to clean all my tack. I got all sorts of stuff off the saddle and got it gleaming and not all scuffed up. Apache’s girth was also really dirty and covered in hair, so I cleaned it, as well. The worst thing was the poor hackamore, which had been sitting since Apache was last ridable and had gotten all yucky and moldy, so I cleaned it all up again, too. I’m ready to go somewhere, once I have somewhere to go with him.
Everything got saddle soap except the suede parts, which just got wiped off and brushed. Horse people, this is a hybrid saddle made by Parelli back when I could afford such things. I intend to use it the rest of my life (it is SO comfy), though I’ll probably have to get a Western one at some point.
I hope that will be soon. Now that I am not spending so much time in Austin, I hope to be able to take lessons and fix some of my riding gaffes, then work on Apache’s horse gaffes. We both have a lot of work to do, but we do love each other!
Today I ended up not doing much after riding Apache in the morning. Partly that’s because I got a shingles vaccine yesterday, and I was tired (fell asleep for a while after lunch).
My Lego creation.
And then my evening activities with Kathleen and some Hearts Homes and Hands staff got canceled because one of the buildings on the ghost tour was on fire. Oops. So, I decided to break out the Lego kits I recently ordered.
I love all the people and their hair
I’d ordered to colorful one when someone at work shared it for Pride week. It is so cheerful! A lot of us got it and have been building them. I may put mine in my office, but I may like it too much to leave it in Austin.
Lego perpetual calendar.
The other thing I made is this cute perpetual calendar. It was on sale, but put my order high enough to get free shipping. So, it was free. I’m glad, because it was missing a red calendar face and had an extra gray one. So the color scheme is wonky, but it still works. Plus, the business dude in the middle makes me smile.
Obviously, the dogs also rested.
Goldie, who’s been here a week today, has not stopped swimming since she got here. Today she was in the deepest part of the little pond and completely submerged other than her head! It was great fun until a bullfrog jumped in and startled her!
She’s just a head.
One other lazy highlight of the day was feeding the chickens some leftover cucumber and apple. I sure love the smell of cucumber, even when it’s past its prime.
This stuff is good.
Since I’d tried apples with the new chickens when they first arrived, and they didn’t touch them, I hadn’t been giving them fruit and veg since. But, today I decided to give it a try again.
Hey, Babette, this cucumber is tasty! Yes, Betsy, the apple is also delicious.
I guess being in the pen with grass and bugs has taught them to try new foods. Next time I’ll give them more, and maybe some watermelon! I’m delighted at how well these new girls are adapting and thriving.
Now to relax some more. I’m out of Lego projects! I hope to be less puny tomorrow. If not, I’ll have more ibuprofen.
The Hermits' Rest 