The Hermits' Rest

Gifts to Myself

I now like birthdays a lot, because I just take a “me” day and do what I want to. If I want to work, I work, and if I want to goof off, I goof off. Today I did quite a bit of each (and am not yet finished).

The highlight of the day, so far, is that I finished the table runner I was making for Lee, which I can now declare his birthday present. Once that yarn finally showed up, I went to town on it. To me, it seems more like a small table cloth than a runner, but it looks cool on my ancient coffee table, even before blocking.

That’s lots of colors, but at least you can see the pattern, too.

As I probably mentioned before, it’s a pattern called Montague, which I made with a wild Noro yarn (Kureyopatora) rather than a sensible tan. Until I wash it and block it (dry it pinned to the correct shape) it will be a little bit lumpy. I have to find a flat surface with no dog access to do the blocking!

The lace pattern was just complicated enough to be interesting, but not so hard that I couldn’t converse or watch television (on most of the rows, anyway). It would look really good in a solid color, but you know me, I’m a peacock or something.

A better idea of the pattern. The black obscures it.

My big treat to myself was a little shopping (with mask; I was the only one) and a DQ Blizzard all by myself, with no begging dogs. Ahh. So, now I have to suddenly run off and feed the horses, but I did want to show you the nice plant I got delivered! I feel so loved.

Don’t Worry, Bees are Happy

Oh my gosh, y’all. I think I got the best birthday present EVER when I went out to check how the bee feeder was doing. Last night I checked it, and it was totally dry, with no bees. I was worried a dog had drunk all the sugar water, so I moved the feeder to a higher spot, added more rocks, and replenished the water. This morning, I saw THIS!

There is some mighty buzzing going on around the chicken coop! There are still plenty of them at the chicken feeder, too, and they don’t seem to mind me adding food, or the chickens coming over and eating it one bit. They are busy bees. I discovered they are thirsty, too, because they are all over all the water sources, as well. You just have to listen to them! Check out this tour (bonus chicken footage).

Suna’s birthday bees

That’s all for now. I just wanted to share that helping bees is making me very, very happy. I needed that!

Speaking of Pollinators – Let’s Help Bees

The situation in this area with regard to the effects of the bad weather incident is pretty dire. I don’t think I realized how bad it was until I read the documentation encouraging people to participate in a project to track the state of pollinators and pollen sources here. Dr. Chip Taylor of Monarch Watch, wrote:

The 11-day cold spell (10-20 February) in Texas was a disaster. Freezing temperatures covered the state and extended well into Northern Mexico. While many of the immediate effects of the freeze are clear, season long and multiple year effects may linger. The damage to the flora was extraordinary, and it is likely that nearly all above ground insects died over a wide area. Plants already in flower may have been so damaged as to not flower this year.

Nearly all above-ground insects died! Now, every time I see an insect, I’m thrilled, and must record it. Yesterday I spotted a young grasshopper and a jumping spider, and if I could have hugged them, I would have.

A few of my friends have been mentioning that the bees are everywhere right now, and they don’t have much to choose from for nectar sources. As I showed you yesterday, I mostly have henbit and dandelions for them, along with a very few white clover blossoms (I think I saw six blossoms between my house and the horses, which is a half mile in distance).

I’ve been seeing photos of home-made bee feeders, which seem to mostly be pans with some gravel in them, filled with honey water. My friend, Pamela, had a lot of success with using a cookie tray and a simple plate!

I wasn’t sure if I needed to do that, since dozens and dozens of bees have been sampling the chicken feed, which makes me worry about how much sugar must be in there!

Click on the images to see them larger and count the bees.

But, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I already had a nice shallow dish over by the chickens, but I don’t have any gravel, so I found a few rocks that look like reasonable perches. I poured some honey water in there (same stuff I make for hummingbirds) and waited.

I guess I haven’t waited long enough, because I have only seen a couple of bees check out the water, and there are still very many on the chicken feed. I think I’ll go out and put in some sticks and flowers and the things Pamela had. It’s an ongoing experiment.

Zero bees at water station. Many bees in and on the food.

As an aside, I have to laugh about my chicken yard. It now feeds not only chickens but many wild birds. I’m always startling doves and meadowlarks in there, plus many sparrows. That’s fine with me. They’re all my avian buddies!

I do hope all the feeding of the bees helps. We need them, the native bees and the honeybees.

Update!

When I went out to check the mail, I took a detour by the chickens to see how the bee feeder was doing. I was happy to see that they found it, and could tell I made the liquid too deep. So, I added some flowers and sticks they can hold onto. Immediately the bees started using them, and more arrived. My heart is full.

I Found a Spring! And Pollinators!

I started out my morning nature break trying to find pollinators and check for damaged flowering plants for a survey of pollinators and plants used by monarchs on iNaturalist. I was very happy to have found bees and a butterfly, and was watching the water flowing in the stream with the dogs.

Then, Lee showed up, wanting me to help get the dogs back up so he could feed them. I said, okay, but look how well the stream is flowing! He noted that the runoff from the pond did not seem to be flowing, but the place where it dumps into the stream WAS making nice little waterfall sounds. So, where was the water coming from?

The stream is flowing so nicely and consistently that actual aquatic plants are growing.

Lee pointed out to a new puddle or marshy area that seems to have (no pun intended ) sprung up since the snow event happened. I’d been meaning to check on it, too.

The newly wet area. You can see it doesn’t have any water plants yet, so it’s new.

The puddle was very full, not like all the other ones that have dried up. Then, lo and behold, I spotted a little hole. That little hole was full of clear water, and it was bubbling up! I finally found the source of one of our intermittent springs! I was pretty excited.

Not much to look at, but it is full of bubbly water!

So, water is coming up from this hole (perhaps from the pond, who knows?), then flowing to the marshy puddle, then heading to join the pond runoff water, and on into the big hole that starts the stream.

I labeled the new spring’s path, since it’s hard to see for the grass.

Yay! Farther down, the water is running really fast, thanks to at least two other springs. We had heard that there have been springs all through that area, but most of them have not flowed since we got here, which was when the big drought of 2011-12 happened. I guess the aquifer has finally recovered! Wow!

This springy area has been holding up since last year.

Anyway, I was happy to find a Sulphur butterfly, a hairstreak and lots and lots of bees outside. They were pollinating the henbit and dandelions.

Also, one of the young willows in the small pond has started sprouting, plus I saw a bullfrog in that pond (and heard another one jump). I found one wolf spider and another insect that got away. That means some of them lived. This all makes me very happy.

Frog is peeking from the center of the pond shore

I do hope to see turtles soon. I am worried about them. But, wow, so happy to have found a spring!

Book Report: Women Talking

Wow. There are so many things to say about this book that I’ll never get them all said! After I read All My Puny Sorrows, I wanted to read more from Miriam Toews, and selected this one, Women Talking, after reading the intriguing reviews. I said All My Puny Sorrows was a jewel of a book. Well, this one is like the Hope Diamond or something. There are so many aspects of it that are just…perfect…that it’s hard to find a place to start.

If this is soon to be a major motion picture, I think I’d have a hard time watching. It’s intense.

Well, I do know where to start, which is with the content warning. If you can’t handle books where there is discussion of rape, you’ll need to pass this one by, because the premise of Women Talking hinges around the effects of women of an entire community dealing with the consequences of it. It’s based on a true story, but the dialog and such are imagined.

The protagonists are a group of women in a Mennonite community isolated somewhere in South America, who at first thought they were being attacked by ghosts or demons in the night. The entire plot takes place over two days, as they decide how to deal with the men in their community who actually perpetuated the crimes.

None of these women have been allowed to learn to read or write, and very few of them have ever left their small compound. They have been trained to obey the men, never offer an opinion, and to simply do their jobs (cook, clean, farm, and reproduce).

They hold a series of secret meetings, when the men have gone to try to bail out the rapists, and they ask the one educated person in the community, the teacher, who’s an outcast, to take minutes of their meetings. August is not sure WHY they asked, but he is willing to do it.

Through his notes (and his unexpectedly complex asides and insights into his own history), we learn what a fascinating group of people these women are, gain many insights into the beliefs of their Mennonite community (by the way, NOT like all Mennonite communities…it’s a bit cultish), and see how brilliant, brave, compassionate, and feisty they can be.

When they start planning, reasoning, discussing theology, and supporting each other, you can’t help but be in awe. Toews shows how resilient the human spirit is, and truly draws you into their culture and concerns. There are so many details I’ll never forget, such as conditions they have to deal with all alone, with no real medical care (edema, fainting spells, pregnancy and childbirth, loss of eyesight, loss of limbs, etc.). And there are little things like how one of them manages to be a smoker, or how the two youngest women braid their hair together, or jauntily remove their head coverings and roll their socks down in rebellion.

You eventually see that everyone in the book has suffered, has tenuous connections to sanity, but have strengths, the depths of which they don’t always realize. And to get to that realization you get to enjoy the privilege of Towes’s spare dialogue, her knack for expressing things in ways that people from another “world” would say them, and her true love for marginalized people.

I admired the women in this book deeply. They stuck to their principles as I could only hope to do if I was challenged to fundamentally. And I admired August the note-taker, too, poor tortured soul.

This book affected me as deeply as The Handmaid’s Tale did way back in the 1980s. That means it will stay with me forever. Please read it.

I’m Still Thinking about the Effects of Labels for Mental Illness and Disability

Every once in a while, a subject gets into my head and just stays there, gnawing away at my free time and causing me to think and think. The topic of how often we refer to negative things in terms once used to describe people living with disabilities or mental illnesses just won’t go away. Now that I am aware of how often these terms are used, I see (or hear) them everywhere, especially in casual conversation, but sometimes even in more serious speech and writing. This has led me to a loose collection of not-all-that-related thoughts.

So much negativity! Image by *@kelsen28 via Twenty20*

Where do we see these terms?

I do NOT see these pejorative terms used (often) in the news, magazines, or academic books. That’s a good sign I guess. The one exception seems to be the “crippled economy” and the like. I am wondering of that persists because circumstances actually can cripple concepts like economies, degrees of debt, etc., by causing metaphorical injuries to them. Perhaps that word can be seen as more neutral, then?

I can see how people can easily get confused until they practice using alternate ways of referring to people. The subtle nuances of finding neutral ways to refer to people dealing with various challenges can take some time to sink in. Luckily, there are plenty of resources to guide you (but don’t read too many, because they can start to conflict). I’m just glad to see there seems to be at least some effort made in new media and places like that.

I want my talking heads to leave the name calling to the people they interview. Image by *@amauritorezan via Twenty20*.

Who’s most likely to use these terms?

Another understanding I’ve reached is that it’s no wonder people use these disability kinds of terms to put others down; as a whole, people are still pretty ignorant about actual facts about disabilities of all kinds. I found an interesting article from the UK about the language of 14-year-olds for putting others down about disabilities.

The authors found five themes in the data.

Popular derogatory terms (nuts, psycho, crazy, loony)
Negative emotional states (disturbed, depressed)
Confusion between types of disability (disabled, spastic, dumb)
Actual psychiatric diagnoses (depression, schizophrenia)
Terms related to violence (scary) (I admit, I didn’t see this as violent)

There are lots of lists of words in the article, but the authors concluded that, for the most part, the young people didn’t really know what the words meant and were just using words for emphasis, especially the popular derogatory terms. They were surprised that actual diagnoses weren’t used much, and concerned that the violence words appeared as much as they did (though they were the least used).

We’re just kids, mimicking other kids. Cut us some slack. Or educate us! Image by *@lelia_milaya via Twenty20*.

The article cited above inspires me to cut folks some slack. How many people know where the words “loony” or “spaz” come from? I sure didn’t until I was a lot older than a teen. Many really hurtful utterances probably come from folks just picking a word they’ve heard others use that sounds sufficiently negative to emphasize a point.

I come to the conclusion, based on that emotional maturity stuff I talked about yesterday, that people who are still muddling along at the adolescent stage of emotional maturity, at least with respect to labeling others, are more likely to engage in using disability terms to insult or put people (and ideas) down.

Now I’m back to name calling

On the other hand, name calling, in general is one of my least-favorite human proclivities. It’s something I worked with my children to eliminate (fairly successfully, for the most part, though we did love the word doofus for gently chiding ourselves for making simple errors). People just LOVE labels. And so many people define themselves by the labels others (and they, themselves) assign to them. That’s why I don’t like name-calling and that type of put-downs. They can mess a person up.

Labeling Exercise

So, here’s something to think about. How many labels have people put on you, or you have put on yourself, throughout your life? I’m thinking both positive and negative, by the way. Here’s a list for me, with my internal labels in italics. (note that some of the items in the left column I don’t personally find negative, like sensitivity and agnostic, and some of my positives are negatives for others.)

Negative	Positive
Fat	Smart
Ugly	Talented
Talkative	Good listener
Stupid	Patient
Unlikeable	Hard worker
Unfriendly	Empathetic
Sensitive	Generous
Unpopular	Kind
Goody-two shoes	Brave
Heathen	Feminist
Agnostic	Spiritually open
Femi-Nazi	Liberal
Libtard	Well read
Intellectual snob	Altruistic
Hysterical	Centered
Nervous	Open minded
Self centered

Look, I made the columns kind of equal, though it was easier to think of the items on the left

As I look at my own list, I can see that some of the labels that have been applied to me sunk in and were very difficult to shake off. Others didn’t bother me at all. I’ll have to ponder why that’s so, but as a first stab (aha, a war metaphor), I’ll guess that labels that point to my insecurities (fat, unlikeable) stuck longer than put-downs that I’m actually proud of (feminist, agnostic).

So, I challenge you to see if you can come up with a list of the things people label you (or you label yourself with). Are they accurate? Have you glommed onto inaccurate ones and believed them at some point in your life? Have you broken away from some labels?

I’ll share more about this later, I guess.

What’s Recuperating from the Cold and Snow?

Since the weather is warm and it hasn’t started raining yet, I decided to see how the life around here is faring after last week’s bad weather. The first thing I found was that, indeed, the cold has messed the chickens up. Look what poor Buttercup laid!

Buttercup’s little egg, next to the normal one I found this morning.

Not all is bad for them, though. While they seem to dislike something in their scratch grain mix, the damp weather has been perfect for sprouting whatever it is. That will make good browsing for them or new chickens that we get!

At least the chicken run won’t be all dirt!

I wondered if any insects and such were out, so I was happy to find a checkered butterfly and two lady bugs! I saw a moth, but it was too fast for me!

I found that most of the usual plants for this tome of year were blooming, but I was surprised to see a cranesbill had already managed to produce seeds!

Cranesbill seed and flower. You can see where it gets its name!

Here are a few of the other blooming plants I saw. It was good to see them recovering.

I also found the wildflowers in good shape, including my favorite yellow daisies and bluebonnets. We’ll have color this year! And speaking of color, the cold gave some unusual leaf colorings.

I heard a lot of frog sounds from across the road, and plenty of birds. I heard a whooshing sound and turned around to see I’d disturbed some ducks on one of the tanks/ponds. I did get a photo of them flying, though I don’t know what kind they are.

Spring is coming. Winter can’t stay forever. I’m glad I got some entries for iNaturalist today!

Emotional Maturity Thoughts

Ooh, scary, I’m back to my deep thoughts again. You can blame my friend Louise, who is always sharing thought-provoking content. Or you can THANK Louise, after you read this!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_6068.jpg — Good old Big Red is emotionally mature for a chicken. She knows what she loves (the horses, me, and her new food) and she takes care of herself.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_6074.jpg

Come to think of it, though, a lot of my “musing” posts (which you can find in the Rants and Ramblings section of this blog) have been about my long and circuitous journey toward emotional maturity. This journey, which doesn’t end by the way, for any of us, is probably the one I care about the most in my life. When it comes down to it, my goal has always been to understand myself better, so that I can understand others better and treat all of us as kindly and gracefully as possible.

Looking back on my past, I realize a lot of the times when I judged others, put myself down, doubted myself, or blamed others for what happened to me, it’s been because I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to see clearly this:

Nothing is as black and white as you think it is, and perfection is an illusion.

And, as a correlation, when others behave “badly,” hurt me, or misunderstand my intentions, it’s for the same reasons. They have some emotional maturity gaps as well. For example, getting to where I am on my journey helps me be more patient with my son who hasn’t spoken to me for two years, knowing he’s always tended to be a black-and-white thinker and a blamer. He is working at his own pace, and may re-think things sometime. In the meantime, it’s my job to be understanding of that and not blame myself.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_6073.jpg — No one is saying the journey is easy!

All this yammering has been brought on from Louise posting on Facebook the lengthy article I’ve pasted at the end of this blog post. I looked around and found its original source, but I’m displeased that it has no author attributed to it. Maybe I need to dig further. In any case, I find these items very helpful to check up and figure out how I’m doing on my journey, and thought you might, too.

When I review these, I can see how I’ve done an impressive job on some of the signs of emotional maturity (1, 6, 11, 15) but I can still do some work on others (9, 21, 23). That’s just fine, because, like I said before, none of us (except maybe bodhisattvas) are going to hit the maturity mark all the time. In fact, like #18 shows, we will all slip into earlier patterns, and that’s normal and human (or “hormal” as I first typed).

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_6072-1.jpg — Makes my brain hurt!

I invite you to read this article and think about it. How are you doing? What are your areas of strength and your areas for growth? Where are you muddling along somewhere in the middle.

Oh, and note that, thanks to all my reading on disability bashing, I replaced all the words in the article with more neutral ones in square brackets []. It was fun and enlightening to practice identifying these kinds of words and thinking of alternatives.

Craft Therapy

Since ye olde pandemic set in, I’ve noticed many of my previously non-crafty friends jumping into the “craft therapy” club. I don’t blame them one bit, because there are so many reasons engaging in crafts can be soothing. I found myself so out of sorts during the Snowpocalypse and my last week at work, that I took to coloring in an adult coloring book.

The paper bent a bit, but it looks good flat. This reminds me of myself as a teen.

It felt good to just randomly pick shiny colors and fill them in. It took enough mental space to clear my mind of my surroundings, but didn’t give me a headache from thinking.

I had a sort of bad pen for the background, but I am coming to like the texture.

I’ve seen lots of pictures of things people colored on paper or on their computers, and they are always cheery. Friends with art talent are painting more, too. I’m told it’s great fun. Kathleen had made some of those things with beads, but I haven’t seen any. I’m told it’s the same kind of “just enough thinking” project.

The need to create beautiful things and concentrate on something other than the news is why I came back to knitting, too. I’m not alone, either. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see my friends taking up knitting or crochet and having fun. I was very disappointed when my friend Melanie, who gave us our late dog Brody, had someone pick on her for being a “granny” because she took up knitting. No, she’s a granny because her child had a baby, sheesh.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Knitting is popular with young people, old people, men, women, gay, and straight. So is crochet.
Thank you.

I’m happy to report that the table runner for Lee has grown by another pattern repeat. It may get finished soon! Then I just have to finish the border on the shawl project. Oh, no, will I be out of projects?

It needs to be 50 inches before I start the border. I’ve got a bit more than a foot to go.

First of all, it is hilarious of me to ask that question, knowing how much yarn and how many pattern books I own. Still, I do have a birthday coming up…

So, I admit I followed an ad and bought a pattern for a lovely project ($5).

It is just what I need for sitting in my cold Cameron office, if I ever get to go back.

So, then I had to find yarn to make it. Luckily, the local yarn shop that I like to support, Hill Country Weavers, had the yarn, three different shades of this stuff, though not the ones in the picture (naturally).

While I was there, I browsed around and bought some more Noro knitting magazines, because I just love looking at things made with that brand of yarn. Then I found a slightly more difficult project to make that I ALSO want to try, so I got yarn for it, too. I detect a pattern in my choices. I like self-striping yarn!

This has entrelac, which I love, plus simple lace. Fun times. I picked a color with no purple in it. I have too many purple shawls.

So, that takes care of my birthday gift from Lee! I get exactly what I want!

Maybe later in the year I will make something in a solid color. We’ll see. I think bright colors are therapeutic for me.

So, have you taken up a new craft or other project to keep you a little calmer and help you feel productive?

Birthdays and Fundraising

At some point next week, I will be an even older Baby Boomer! But I still don’t have to register for Medicare, so I declare I’m still middle aged. Why does this matter? Well, for the last few years, I’ve raised funds for a good cause rather than ask for gifts, so I thought I’d share it here, too.

WOO HOO MY FACEBOOK FUNDRAISER!

We got Carlton and Penney from the Cameron Touch of Love dog pound. Your donation will help pets throughout our rural county through the nonprofit Milam Touch of Love (MTOL) organization.

Some Fundraiser Considerations

I get questions ever year, so here’s why I do what I do. Maybe you can support an organization or group, too!

Why a Facebook fundraiser? I know some folks don’t like them, because FB no doubt makes interest on donations before they pay them out. But, they do pay every cent donated, and it’s easy to donate. Any reader who’d like to donate another way can go to the MTOL website and use their form or mails check. Please say it’s for my fundraiser, so they will know how to allocate the funds.
Why only once a year? I think people can feel bombarded by requests for money. I know I do sometimes. So, I tend to do my own donations privately, but I do give to birthday fundraisers for good causes and to honor people I care about. And once a year I choose a nonprofit to support. You’ll see that not all the donations are big, which comes as no surprise during these challenging times. It feels good to give to others sometimes, though.
Why Milam Touch of Love? The main reason is that I honor my commitments. When I was at my last MTOL Board meeting, I said I’d do another birthday fundraiser, so I am! The organization has done an incredible job rescuing puppies and sending them to places with plenty of adoption opportunities, spaying and neutering pets to help drive down unwanted births, and microchipping pets to make finding their owners easier. And the president of MTOL writes educational articles in the local paper each week. She’s amazing, and I want to support her hard work. She even got certified as an animal control officer, to better help the animals in our county.

I hope that all helps a bit. Since I’m not able to be an active member of MTOL anymore, it’s even more meaningful to me that I help this way. I always hoped that our mutual love for animals would keep the MTOL team diverse and mutually respectful, but that’s hard these days. Still, I encourage my friends and readers to put aside our differences and help those who can’t help themselves.

Things are hard right now. Believe me, trying to get a small business started during COVID has not been easy on my family’s finances. But, we still do our charitable giving, at a scale we can manage. I hope you do, too, and give to organizations like MTOL, who use you money to directly help others.

Carlton is giving his mommy a touch of his love. He also made it hard to write this, since he wanted to play.

We all need to spread a touch of love in this world.