The Hermits' Rest

Frigid-Pocalypse! The Cold!

I’m not apologizing to anyone tired of weather posts. All we have here is weather, and since we can’t go anywhere or do anything, it’s weather-post-a-rama here in the ice cube known as the middle of Texas. It’s cold as when I used to live in Illinois, only that it not at all normal here. No one remembers it being this cold. And last night’s blizzard of sleet and snow was something else. The good news is that the sun is out for the first time in days.

Blurry, since there’s no way I was going out to actually get this shot up close, but it WAS pretty this morning.

And we do have power, which is good. Many parts of the area are dealing with rolling blackouts or just plain outages. The less good thing is that our heating system can’t cope, so it was 45 degrees this morning in our bedroom. My office is the warmest place, and I found a heating pad. We sent the space heater over to Jim in the RV, who needs it way worse than we do!

Chickens, cows, and all are still there. The pond/tank froze for the first time!

Today’s snow isn’t as pretty as last time, because the wind blew it out of the trees, but I’ve been enjoying bird watching out the window. Cardinals always look spectacular against the snow, and the little sparrows are bopping around like crazy. The crows are cawing (celebrating all their wins, I guess), and the doves are flopping around grumpily. I saw at least one live chicken outside (I have NOT dared to walk around, since it is 8 degrees outside).

I’m very thankful Ralph said he would check on the horses, since driving over there would be dangerous without four-wheel drive, even though it isn’t very far. Mandi slid down the hill going up to the cemetery yesterday, when she was attempting to go UP. So, we will not be leaving the house.

We managed to sleep fine last night with sufficient blankets and warm dogs. Carlton stayed under the blankets all night, but surprisingly enough, he and Penney went out and ran around and played for a while. They’re tough, but not like the cows. They just want their water trough de-iced!

Whee! Penney’s feet don’t want to touch the snow!

It has even snowed in Yorktown, where Kathleen and them are, a thing they don’t remember ever happening. Lee says his dad experienced it, but then, he lived through most of the 20th Century! Yorktown is not that far from the Gulf of Mexico, so that’s saying something. It’s a big weather day for Texas!

Luckily, I have lots to blog about and enough bird-watching and knitting to get me through the day, but my longest exercise streak died yesterday, what with all the sickness and the confinement to quarters.

From what I can tell, nothing’s been down our county road today.

I only feel a little sickly today, so it looks like I’ve kicked the vaccine’s butt and my immune system is strong and vigorous. Hooray.

If you are in any of the many, many areas in the US hit by this awful weather, I hope you stay safe and warm. It’s bad all over, and much worse in the north. You are all in my thoughts.

Feel free to share your experiences or commiseration!

Bah. Sick.

As if it isn’t bad enough the heat can’t keep the house above 60 degrees, I’m not feeling well. Feverish and achy. Can’t stay awake.

To top it off, I managed to mess up my simple knitting project and had to undo 1800 stitches! Ugh!

At least I got the horses fed a LOT this morning. I’m wishing for helpers today! I think I can get some food to them. And tomorrow I assume I’ll have slept it off and will see how I cope with historic low temperatures.

Anyway, no interesting blog from me today. Sleet has started and it’s really icy. Fun times.

Heat and Love

We have been warned of historically bad weather coming. I look forward to the coming snow, and enjoyed some great pictures from my friends in Washington! But, it’s gonna get cold and wet, which means power outages are possible.

Totally iced over by Walker’s Creek church.

I said to Lee that I wished we had installed the extra gas fireplace we had leftover from our last renovation project. We couldn’t find it, which is weird, because we both remember it sitting around…somewhere.

Then it occurred to us that the store nearby where we bought most of our furniture sells fireplace inserts. Lee dropped by, but they didn’t have any in stock (they usually order them custom). Then she remembered there were some laying around…somewhere.

But, yay! They found stuff! All we had to do was pick it up! We went over there, which gave me a chance to take pictures of the icy landscape in our area. It’s just so…white. I’m sure it would have been spectacular if the sun came out. However, that’s unlikely for a few days.

When we got home, it was clear that these weren’t fancy new fireplace inserts. But, they are fine looking.

Carlton really wanted to help Lee install the logs and such, but his paws were too big.

Lee didn’t put the fancy controls in. We will wait until our resident expert comes back. It works now, though! And the logs are just fine! I consider this my Valentine and a true display of Lee’s eternal love. Aww.

We are quite pleased to have backup heat at the Hermits’ Rest, just in time for the wintry mix and such. I’m so grateful to Franci at the furniture store for going above and beyond to help out. Love to her family, too!

And hey, I made chili with some of the 5 pounds of dried pinto beans Meghan brought us. We won’t starve. We are ready For the deep cold. Brr.

The Aftermath: Brr + Ow

Honest, I’m not a weather wimp. I recall only recently writing a post about how much I love to exercise in the snow. I do! It’s hard to exercise on ice, though, and that’s what we still have at the moment here in the middle of the Texas icefield (subject to change). Today was just not a great day for me to have to get out and deal with the cold and its consequences.

Carlton was not about to go out with me!

But, I am doing the needful, as they say in India, where it might be warmer right now, at least in some parts. The problem is that I am that lucky rare person to get ALL the vaccine side effects! Yippee! So, my arm feels like a dead weight and prefers to not be lifted, thanks. And I have had a raging headache since yesterday, plus I feel like I have the flu. This will all be temporary, but I sure didn’t want to venture out into 26-degree F weather this morning.

As Sara pointed out to me while she was texting my instructions, you have to be a responsible livestock owner. And right now I’m responsible not only for my livestock, but the cows over here and all the horses. Sara is stuck at her other house for a few more days, so I am happy to help. Luckily, Ralph is helping out with his cattle and is going to bring over a LOT of hay, which will make things easier.

I wish I had a picture of my horse feeding outfit. I was plenty warm, especially because I had a great combo of a ear-covering band, a hoodie, and my facemask to keep my head warm. My thick gloves worked great until they got wet from breaking up ice in water troughs, but I know all the livestock appreciated it. Kathleen’s cows were looking at me like, “Help!” this morning, even though they DO still have water in the arroyo.

The chicken water is totally frozen, but they also have other sources once they are out of their coop. I’m sure glad we built that small pond near the house!

Visual proof all horses have been moved.

When I got to the horses, my job was to move Spice and Lakota from the pasture they are in to the pen where Apache and Fiona are, so they will have more shelter and some hay. I was really glad when my fellow rancher arrived to help me open the frozen gates to the pen where the tiny calf had been (tiny calf was spotted yesterday romping through the icy field with his buddies!), which gives the horses more shelter AND Fiona a more accessible water trough. There was much banging (which totally annoyed Big Red, who was trying to eat her chicken scratch).

Those open gates were not easily accomplished. So grateful for the help!

Moving the horses went fine, and I was pleasantly shocked to find that Spice’s blanket was still on her. She’d somehow torn the back of it up, and completely broken off one of the straps. I managed to McGuyver up a way to keep it on, and by gosh, it was still on this morning! Yay! I also found one more blanket, which is good. If that one goes, there is a spare. There were none in Tractor Supply yesterday, and my friend Courtney said she bought the last one. (As an aside, her story of making their pony a blanket out of a fleece blanket, some plastic, and duct tape was pretty funny, at least to humans; the pony was not amused.)

Yep, it’s on, all right. Not shown is the makeshift attachment in the rear. She is able to poop, which is all that matters, I guess.

Spice and Lakota got all excited to be in a different place and ran around like crazy. I guess that will help keep them warm. Apache and Fiona were like, “Wow, this is a lot of hay,” and were chomping away when I left, which was hampered by the fact that the condensation on my glasses, which I’d had to remove, had actually frozen. Yep, it’s cold.

It’s only going to get colder! I’m really hoping we all keep power and heat! You may have to endure more snow pictures in the next few days. None of us remember it ever being so cold for so long here. I guess we will have to get used to it for the future. I know I plan to get a trough warmer when/if we get our horse barn here!

Got any cold-weather stories to share?

COVID +1, Ice 0

Ice is zero, because that’s how cold it is in Celsius. COVID is +1, because I got my first Moderna vaccination today. I’m really relieved to get the process started, because it means I might be able to go back to my nice office in Cameron without being so paranoid about potential exposure from Hearts, Homes and Hands staff who work with so many clients (and we are glad they do). Anyway, that’s why I got to get the shot before turning 65 or 64 or whatever age it is.

The Vaccination

The County Health Department has the luxury of two closed hospitals to use in cases like this (thanks to all the rural hospitals closing down…moving on…). That meant there were lots of rooms for counseling and giving the shots. Everyone was SO nice. You could just see how happy they are to be doing this for our citizens.

Sad room, wishing it could be part of a hospital again.

The nurse who counseled me was especially nice, and we spent a lot of time praising the County Judge, who has been quite the stoic through this whole pandemic. Half the county says he’s the Devil and half says he’s a Saint. Whichever, the job certainly has been more than he thought it would be when he ran for office!

The only part about the whole thing was that, because it’s truly cold and most of the people getting their vaccines are elderly, they had everyone wait inside rather than sitting in their cars and being called in. I truly understand why they did it, but GEEZ I felt claustrophobic waiting in a hallway filled with fragile people, where there was no way to get 6 feet away from anyone. I did double mask, though, and I’m sure most of those folks were like me and never leave their houses except for things like vaccinations!

They DID have chairs spaced out. The ones next to each other are for couples.

Now I just have to wait a month to get the other shot, then two more weeks and I’ll feel a bit better interacting with folks (with mask).

The Ice

One thing I realized when I was driving to Rockdale for the vaccination is that up here in Walker’s Creek/Silver City (or wherever I live), we got much more ice than only a few miles south of us did. Some of Rockdale’s trees looked perfectly normal. On the other hand, there are lots of trees down here (and my friends in northwest Austin really, really had lots of damage).

These poor trees just keep getting smaller and smaller every time there’s bad weather.

On the other hand, ice sure is pretty.

I love this ice-encapsulated beggar’s purse!

I’m glad the temperature is a balmy 32 F (0 C) today, since I need to load up on hay for Apache for the upcoming Polar Vortex. Sara and Ralph got blankets on all the horses, but Fiona is so fuzzy, she’s fine. Everyone has shelter and seemed just fine this morning, once I broke the ice in the water troughs, which I will have to do again this evening, I’m sure.

We are fine, and have hay. And all the cattle are munching away, happy as can be.

Enjoy some more photos of our icy time. By Sunday we should be getting snow or worse. It may get down to the OTHER 0 degrees! This is NOT normal Texas weather!

My Least-Favorite Weather Is…

…the weather going on right now at the ranch. Freezing rain is just the worst weather Mother Nature can come up with. It just wants to kill things.

We were all under the impression that bad weather was coming in a few days, but surprise! Here it is! I am glad that all my animals have nice warm shelter (chickens in the garage and horses under their shelter, which is also where mama and baby calf are, to answer Catherine).

Some animals find the crunch ice fun, however, once the thunder stopped.

I’m also glad to be working from home.

I spent 20 years in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. That particular area is often on the border between rain and snow, so I endured a lot of ice storms when I lived there. I have stories, including the time a colleague and I were stuck at the bottom of a dirt driveway on a hill and had to push my Gremlin (that was a type of car) up the hill, after my friends had slowly driven to us to help. We drove twenty miles at 15 miles per hour to get home, all covered in mud. We all had a good laugh, once it was over, but that was a truly scary drive!

Black willows by the pond, by Meghan, from her car.

Here, it’s just freezing raining really hard and has been for a few hours. That makes a nice coating of ice on…everything. It’s worse where I used to live just northwest of Austin, from accident reports and photos I’ve seen. The only thing stirring out here are the intrepid meadowlarks and Meghan, who had to have a meeting with Lee. The dogs would not leave while it was thunder-sleeting.

The gate entry keypad looks chilly. Photo by Meghan.

Well, I take it back. The birds are like, what the heck, we’re hungry, so we might as well eat. The bluebirds, phoebes, and mockingbird are all on the very cold fence looking for food. Mrs. Bluebird really looks sad. I wish my window didn’t have a screen!

That first bird is poor Mrs. Bluebird (the male bluebird and mockingbird are also there, but too blurry, thanks to my screen).

For about a half hour, the mockingbird chased the bluebirds off the fence. That rocket-like thing is a bluebird.

I’m glad we have plenty of hot cocoa and the ability to make chili, because we will need it! I’m feeling mighty bad for friends I know whose heating has gone out, and of course those of you north of us who are laughing about our complaints down here. My coworker in Minnesota got a good laugh about our whining this morning!

I hope we don’t lose too many limbs or trees in this. If heavy snow starts, things will start falling. Oh well, that’s how it goes these days.

I went out and checked the rain gauge for Lee, and we had .71″ so far. I got a few more pretty photos, so please enjoy. The flowers look especially cool. You can click a photo to see it larger and not cropped.

Freezing rain brings beauty and pain. A rhyme.

The Tiny Calf

I can tell this story, because it’s happy, and I like happy baby stories. We’ve had a calf on the property for a week who was having trouble immediately after birth. I saw one of the lease guys pick it up and put it in the utility vehicle. I noticed it wasn’t standing.

The sun shining on mama and day-old baby

I was relieved to see the little feller in the pen the next day. He was sure cute, and his mama was very protective. I noticed he sorta scooted around.

The next couple of days I figured out there was something wrong with his front legs. He always stood with his hooves folded under. It turns out his tendons had gotten stretched at birth, and it’s not uncommon. Usually it resolves itself in a few days.

The other issue was he was having trouble nursing. Not being able to stand very long couldn’t help. But, the guys who own him were not giving up. He got bottle fed twice a day, and believe me, milking a beef cow is not a romantic event where you sit on a stool with a pail. No, she had to get squeezed in the chute so she’d hold still!

You may not photograph me getting milked. By this time, he was standing more and even ran a few steps.

Monday, the cow looked way better, and sure enough, we saw the calf nursing. My resident experts were concerned that his tendons hadn’t settled back yet. Both Sara and Trixie said they’d never seen it last so long. That worried me.

Today was all rainy, but I sure was glad to see the little family still in the pen. And hey, look who was standing and walking around like a calf? Our little guy! I needed that happy sight.

After a week, he’s almost normal and obviously gaining weight from all that delicious moo milk. I found out he hasn’t had a bottle since Monday. Looks like all that patience and extra care was worth it! Just look at that smile!

He’s a friendly fellow, but mama isn’t. I know she will be glad to get back in the pasture! I really admire the guys who care for these cattle for being willing to take extra care of their herd. Ranchers with good hearts! (And they’ll make money, too.)

Sometimes I Get Frustrated. I Suck at It.

ACK. Here I am again to share with the world that I am fine just the way I am, and all that, but could still manage to tweak a few things. I think we all have situations or feelings we don’t have to deal with or express often and just get rusty. Expressing frustration/disappointment in groups is one of those things. Ugh. I am getting more practice lately, but darn, I would probably prefer less practice. It makes my eye twitch, and with the way my eyelids are sagging, I don’t need even less eyeball real estate.

Generally, when I am frustrated with people, I go take one of my long and rather violent walks, where I physically get the majority of it out of my system, and I plan how to rationally and calmly talk about things. Sometimes, I am told, I am too calm and subtle, and so careful not to hurt people’s feelings, so people can’t tell I am actually trying to get them to do something. That’s one of those things I can’t quite get rid of from how I was brought up, and actually something I like, since I prefer to get feedback and direction in a helpful and calm way.

At least I get to smile when a cow suddenly appears above all my work screens.

It doesn’t help things that I know I come across pretty intense when I finally do try to say something firmly, and that it has cost me friends and upset colleagues. Still, I do get frustrated sometimes. I usually ask myself if telling people about it will do anything to improve the situation or change behavior. If it won’t, it’s back to the violent walks and not causing unnecessary strife.

In the past month or two I’ve received feedback that I need to “stand up for myself” more and let people know very clearly how they haven’t lived up to my expectations, when it’s important. I’ve also been letting some issues in the workplace get under my skin to where I’ve become irritable and I could see that the issues were affecting other colleagues. I really needed to say something and get things back on track, because I was pretty sure that bringing the issues up might actually have a positive effect in the long run, even if people got upset in the short term.

CAW, Says the Texas Fish Crow. Suna rocks! Photo by *@eric_urquhart via Twenty20*

Since I don’t do this stuff very often, I was not as eloquent as I could have been, and of course, one person thought I was directing it all at them, but at least I made it clear that some things really do need to change.

And I had a good talk with the person who was upset, and came out with some helpful steps to making things better for all. I’m going to give myself a hearty CAW CAW and put this in the Celebrate All Wins category.

All the Venting

I was totally knackered, as they say in places outside the US, after all my meetings and chats yesterday. I was not the only frustrated one, so I engaged in a lot of active listening, reflecting, and venting of my own. Luckily, the venting led to productive ideas, plans for dealing with the various situations, and best of all, some humor. Thank goodness we can all still laugh! I’m also grateful that the colleagues I work most closely with and trust the most have the same goals I do, which is to produce good stuff that helps our customers succeed. Dealing with people who are focused on making themselves look good or getting a promotion would be sooo draining, so I’m glad I engage in a minimum of that.

Even our cats and dogs, who kept visiting our Zoom meetings, laughed. Image by *@davidcharouz via Twenty20*

Thanks for listening, and thanks to my Master Naturalist and Friends of LLL buddies for bringing some fun into meetings, too!

There Isn’t Always Common Ground – I Know That

Gotta say I’m enjoying the dialog sparked by my writing about how we can somehow build up community between the divided country we live in (and that UK citizens and Germans do, too). I’ve enjoyed the input from a variety of people, and especially encourage those of you who think the left versus right problem is confined only to the US to read the comments on my last two posts:

Controversial Unity Crap Again

Fascinating Feedback (and Lack Thereof)

I appreciate that many readers in my extended community think I’m on the right track about being willing to listen to others, look at the big picture, and see how we got where we are. But, I also appreciate those of you who say you just can’t try for a middle ground with people who believe x, y, and z. I probably touched on that issue a little bit, but not enough, so let me clarify a bit.

Diversity! Unity! Idealism! Image by *@yummypixels via Twenty20*

There’s no denying that there are radical fringe group members who are neither interested in compromising nor holding onto beliefs most people would want to compromise about. People in the middle might find the extremists on one side of the other more palatable, but there are some philosophies where the majority of people feel like we have to draw the line, as Aurora (not her real name) said on Facebook.

Nope, I’m not going to waste my time working for common ground with actual neo-Nazis, nor with radicalized Communists who want to completely dismantle our society. I may hold slightly more sympathy to the left-leaning extremists, but I know better than to argue with one (having given birth to one). I’m going to let them go do their things and concentrate on things I CAN do something about. There always have been and always will be extremes. You can’t have a continuum without ends, though sometimes it seems like the very opposite ends are sort of close to each other!

When I talk about finding common ground and working toward common goals from different perspectives, I’m talking about the vast majority of people, even those very firm in their beliefs about political and sociological issues, but who recognize the common humanity with their fellow citizens.

I hope that clears things up a bit. Sorry I don’t have as much time as usual to make my points!

Just Some Love

I wanted to share how pleasant it was today when Trixie came by to trim the horses’ hooves. When it was Apache’s turn, he was so relaxed that he kept leaning his big horse head on my shoulder. When I had to move, Fiona then showed up, and after a little fooling around, she let Apache rest his head on her. Such friendship.

Goofing off while getting hooves trimmed.

I made him happy by letting Apache graze while Spice got looked at. At least he let me get a couple of pictures of his Arabian-esque profile and his newly slim physique.

We are considering letting Fiona become a mommy to a pony mule. Wouldn’t that be cute? Another buddy for the rest of my life!

Sorry for all the horse posts. Apache’s energy really helps me feel centered and grounded. Who can’t use that today? Plus, horses smell so good and let you brush their hair.