The Hermits' Rest

Hermiting in the Woods

Since neither my sister nor I felt great after our vaccinations, we didn’t do dinner tonight. That, combined with the fact that it’s the first night of Daylight Savings Time led me to decide to spend some quiet time in the woods.

Hermits’ Rest woods just before the trees leaf out.

It wasn’t a quiet time, because there were so many birds, mostly white-crowned sparrows, mourning doves, mockingbirds and cardinals.

The female cardinal was chirping away when I took this.

I just wandered slowly (I left the dogs in the house) so I could see the birds, hear the creek flowing away, and enjoy the new leaves budding.

The creek makes a wide spot where lots of fish live.

It always smells good in the damp woods (even with the cow poop scattered around). It’s especially musty and lovely by the seep, the springy area in the woods that never dried up at all last year. I crouched beside it a long time, listening to birds and watching them fly around.

While I was there, I heard a loud bird sound, then something big flew by. I was enchanted, and I confirmed my hunch when I heard a hammering sound. It then flew by again, with a flash of black, white and red. It was the biggest pileated woodpecker I ever saw.

Photo taken yesterday in Virginia by Bob Hass.

While I’ve seen them here before, never so close and so large. No, no photo. I was using my eyes!

Eventually I stopped being a hermit and joined Lee for a walk around the pond behind the house with the dogs. That’s always so relaxing. I was captivated by the perfection of dandelion seed heads and a little circle of verbena. A nice evening.

It’s HARD to Require Masks in Texas

This morning, my son’s partner, Rollie, posted on Facebook that they’d had a disturbing experience at the local grocery store near where they live. While shopping at the H-E-B (yes, that’s the name of it; it’s the founder’s initials, which is much better than if they’d chosen Butts, his last name*), there was a customer not wearing a mask getting really close to Rollie and Declan. They asked this college-age customer to mask up, but they would not. When Declan called the store later, they said they could not enforce the mask-wearing signs all over the store, because the workers keep receiving threats of violence.

I think people should be kind, says Carlton.

My gosh, people. Is it really worth threatening to harm others when a private company requests that people take safety precautions? Do people pull out their weapons when stores try to enforce “no shoes, no shirt, no service”? It’s all common-sense health stuff when around food.

I sorta knew this was coming when the Texas governor lifted all restrictions and let restaurants and bars go back to full capacity. I also was not surprised to learn that many establishments voluntarily have not changed what they are doing, mainly out of concern for the people who work there. That bit makes me proud of fellow humans.

Many people have opinions on whether the grocery chain should take a stance on mask wearing, ranging from, “H-E-B is a liberal tool” to “H-E-B should be escorting barefaced customers out of the store” (all these are usually expressed more colorfully, of course).

Cock-a-doodle-doo! Safety is for you! Bruce knows.

I went off to find out more information, and located a helpful Houston Chronicle article by Abigail Rosenthal. In it, I found the official H-E-B policy:

“While statewide policy has changed, our store protocol has not,” the company said in a statement. “Mask use at our stores will remain. Our signs requiring mask use will remain posted at entrances and we will continue to make announcements in store.”
We will continue to expect shoppers to wear masks while in our stores. Additionally, we will still require all our Partners and vendors to wear masks while at work.”
March 5 statement

That’s all good, but I was disturbed to read that there have been over 2,000 in-store incidents in Houston. I wonder how many there have been in the rest of the state? People do continue to disappoint me. The President of the grocery store chain said they simply can’t force people to be kind and caring.

McClelland said then that customers not wearing a mask would be asked to put one on. If they don’t have one, a Partner would offer them a mask. But McClelland said associates would not escalate the situation if the customer continued to refuse.
“What’s important to me is, I’ve got to ensure for the physical safety of both my employees and customers in the store,”… “That’s what we have been doing, and frankly it’s the same thing we’ll continue to do.”
H-E-B clarifies mask policy, says customers will be ‘expected’ to wear masks in stores, Houston Chronicle, March 8

This really makes me worried about people like Rollie, who work in restaurants and have to deal with the general public. I can easily see how it would be really difficult for restaurant and other food-service workers to remain civil while they are so concerned about their health.

In unrelated news, the Ancona hen has finally started laying eggs again. Of course, I found that white on in the garage. Sigh. But it appears that at least 4 of them are back to laying after the winter upsettedness.

I will continue to mask up when I am interacting closely with people I don’t know and who haven’t been vaccinated. If it turns out that it was an abundance of caution to do it, well, it hasn’t hurt anything and has maybe kept some spring pollen out of my airways, to boot!

And if you are among the group who doesn’t want to wear a mask, I am sure there are other grocery stores you can go to. That’s freedom, right? Each privately owned company can make their own decisions, and if you disagree, they won’t get your money! That will show them! (And that is why I don’t patronize certain establishments that force their religion on their employees or discriminate blatantly against my LGBTQ+ friends and family.)

So there.

*By the way, I have nothing against the name Butts. It was my grandmother’s given surname, and there’s a whole branch of Butts relatives out there in Appalachia.

Dogs Love Springtime

As weak as I was feeling today, I had to get outside some. After all, it’s getting to be spring! So, I dragged myself around the property while the dogs played.

They love it when it’s warm and windy, especially when they have water to splash in. Alfred and Carlton, the two white dogs, both enjoyed the front pond.

Heck, even big ole Harvey got some wading in, and he’s the one who usually gives up after five minutes of frolic and goes to sit by the front door. He was as frisky as the rest of the gang!

Vlassic could not resist bothering the cows, but he was easily distracted by going to the other side of the driveway, where I had to check to be sure our new spring was still flowing.

For some reason, this little hole in the ground with water gushing out of it makes me really happy. It’s such a positive change, and it’s providing water for the birds and wildlife.

Now that water has been flowing for a few months, water plants are growing in the spring, and I’m excited to see what shows up between now and when everything dries up (as I’m sure it will, given our climate).

I ended my trudge around our field by watching Penney, who’s our current water dog, as she checked out all the water sources. She loves the stream, and I loved seeing willow leaves sprouting.

The walk made me tired, so I napped the rest of the afternoon. The side effects are weird, such as burning ears. I guess it’s flu-like symptoms. My immune system is kicking in! And damp Penney kept me cool until cows showed up and got the dogs into bark mode.

Since my sister got the one-shot vaccination yesterday, we will be fully protected at the same time. I can’t wait to go to the Bistro for dinner again!

How are you?

Plans for Today Cancelled

I had so much confidence that I’d have few side effects from my second COVID vaccine. But, while it’s not as bad as last time, just a couple hour after I woke up I got the bone tiredness that’s common. So, Sara will ride my horse today and I will read knit, and nap.

But, at least I have a nice new bed set and valances for the dogs…I mean for me to sleep under.

I ordered these Western linens (on sale, too!) to see if they’d make me like my brown walls better. They do look good with the headboard Lee made, and the valance looks pretty good, though we plan to stretch it out a bit. We also have valances for the windows, but need something to hang them on.

The dogs always enjoy morning walks, even when it’s cloudy and breezy.

It’s a windy, gray day, anyway, so I’ll be okay inside. The clouds were really pretty, in a gloomy way, this morning, a nice start to the last day of Standard time.

Is it important for your clothing and dog to match your knitting? I think it’s classy.

I’ll get back to my knitting and resting at the Hermits’ Rest. I hope someone listens to the podcasts! Enjoy my lisping. You will also get to enjoy music from my son, Declan Murtagh, on the podcast. It’s just what I wanted!

Spring Support and Hopefulness

Hey! Thanks to all of you who sympathized with my being so hopeless and sad right now. You all rightly pointed out that many things have led to our collective urge to just sit and stare ahead. There’s even astrological reasoning! This afternoon, Sara postulated that because we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, all the stuff we’ve been holding in has started to leak out. Yeah.

Carlton is tired of being confined to his backyard. We understand.

Today I was getting a bit concerned about myself. I kept having trouble concentrating, and somehow managed to leave Austin late. Partly I was distracted by welcome signs of life coming back.

I enjoyed lots of redbud trees and pear trees. I’m so glad they made it. And the first thing I spotted when I got to the ranch was an Indian paintbrush!

I looked and looked for these last weekend!

I’d heard bluebonnets are blooming at last, but didn’t spot them until I got to the hill leading down to Walker’s Creek, where they are beautiful every year.

I sure hope to get prettier bluebonnet pictures soon!

I was still pretty squirrelly when I got to the ranch. I was nervous about getting my second COVID vaccine, so I forgot my vaccination card and panicked because I couldn’t find my paperwork. Uh, it was in the car. Then I drove off, leaving a can of drink on the trunk. That’s gonna make a mess when I open it, I’m sure.

But! I got to the vaccine place! Turns out I was supposed to be there yesterday. But, they let me in. The shot didn’t hurt, and so far I have little pain. Maybe I got all my reactions over with last month.

The other part of the day that made me feel supported and hopeful was that I went to the drugstore in Cameron to pick up my precious drugs, and got to see Mandi at her new job as a pharmacy assistant. Yes! After we had to let her go, she made good use of the time and got her certificate back. See, some people DO use their unemployment to get training and get a job. I’m so proud of her and will hug her in two weeks.

Once I got home, I took a nap and felt fine feeding horses. We had to give them the nastiest wormer of the series we are giving this spring. Both Apache and Lakota made some sad faces and rubbed their faces on the ground. Tomorrow if I’m not having reactions we will reward them with grooming and riding. They are shedding big time. I need it, so I hope I feel less scattered and more centered.

One last photo. Crow poison is beautiful, despite its name.

Little things like signs of spring and the promise of future hugs help. But knowing I’m not alone and have wonderful, supportive friends everywhere to feel a sense of community with is the best. Sincere thanks to all. We’re in this together. That’s helping me know I can crawl out of this hole!

Want to support my blog and podcast so I can keep going? Your monthly donation would help cover my blog expenses. I can assure you that on a blog as little as this one, the ads only give me a couple of dollars a month, so even a dollar makes me happy!

Helplessly Hoping

Oh, my friends, this anniversary of the pandemic lockdowns has not led to a bunch of happy, hopeful humans in my little world. The people who are struggling to maintain their equilibrium are just not doing it. And even those of us who’ve been keeping our heads above water feel like we are sinking. The hope that truly IS out there is just hard to see!

The little pink flowers of hope are hiding among the prickly cactus that is life with COVID-19.

Heck, I’ve been doing sort of okay most of the past year, but for the past few days, it’s been quite difficult to get through a day. It doesn’t help that my meetings seem to have meetings in them and I get really tired of Zooming. I put the image below on Facebook, and got a lot of support from friends who said this has been an extra-hard few days for them.

It’s weird. I’m NOT all afraid like my friends in the Other World (that’s what I’ve decided to call the Fox News watching crowd) keep telling me. I’m living my life. I’m getting my second vaccine today, actually, and I look forward to some travel in a couple of months. I do have hope, but it feels like helpless hope. I honestly think I just can’t believe positive news.

For example, President Biden gave a talk last night, and it was full of hope and positive energy. People in the US might actually get vaccinated. People who are not me are getting money from the government, too. He spoke kindly, stayed on script, and didn’t call anyone names. This normally would have made me feel better.

But no, the cycle I’ve gone through in the last few decades (Bush, Obama, the previous guy, Biden) has led me to not put any credence into good news. There’s always something awful just down the road. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that life is suffering (I read Lion’s Roar, after all) and that there will always be positive and negative aspects to life, the dark and light sides of the Force, and all that. But the un-ending, pounding, grinding succession of challenges, struggles, meanness, and and obstacles the past year has brought with it have taken a lot out of me. It helps to know I’m not alone.

Don’t force yourself to choose unless you want to, says Suna the Grey.

I admire the folks who are hanging in there and posting the positive memes every day (like my dear niece who could find the good in our sun going supernova, I think). Hope is needed. But right now, I’m in a place that I don’t believe it, no matter how nice it is to see it in others.

All I have for y’all is some virtual hugs. I think I mentioned needing hugs just a couple of days ago! And I appreciate the return hugs and good energy. I’m absolutely confident that I’m just dealing with a passing depression episode that’s completely understandable. Just know that I’m still helplessly hoping, and some day I may even believe my hope and get back to all that cautious fun I was managing to have earlier in the pandemic period.

Oh yes, it’s my job to mention that I do have podcasts now of all my most recent posts. I usually record each blog post within 24 hours of posting it here. You can go to Apple podcasts, Spotify, and many other places, search for the Hermits’ Rest, and follow our spoken journey. I also promise to mention anyone kind enough to sponsor my podcast, which will help repay all the money I spend to bring you this blog!

Book Report: Biased

It’s time for another in my series of book reports on unconscious bias. This one’s a little different from the previous ones, because it covers mostly just one racial bias, the one against Black people, particularly in the USA. Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, was written by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Ph.D., who’s spent her entire career studying this type of bias, and has worked extensively with many police departments to help diminish this kind of behavior within their work. The book came out in 2020, so has recent statistics and analysis, which is always something I enjoy.

Eberhardt shares many stories from her own experience, not only as a researcher, but as a Black woman and mother to Black male children. Her stories about her sons and their experiences, her own experiences in school, and the people she’s encountered during her lecture tours and workshops with police officers are quite eye-opening and add strong punctuation to the data and other information she presents.

I truly appreciated her honesty as she talked about progress and setbacks in racial bias throughout our recent history. She makes it very clear that we have a LONG way to go before people can eliminate this bias, even when they very much want to do so. Data she presents about how people associate Black people with apes without even knowing it disturbed me greatly. And when she presented evidence that the stereotypes and biases are just as present in Black people as in others, I really got to understand that this is a hard, hard issue with no easy solutions.

Eberhardt even comes out and exhorts readers to not be too discouraged, because at least we are now learning exactly what we’re up against.

I learned some facts about how Asians are being treated, both in the US and Europe, and I now understand the pressures many of my children’s classmates dealt with. Even if she didn’t devote as many pages to biases against Asians, Hispanics, and women, she shared enough to get me thinking. It’s just as hard to live up to certain expectations as to rise above negative stereotypes! The few paragraphs on smart women explained a lot of my past experiences.

Sometimes I learned new things from Biased that I wish I hadn’t learned, such as that many “minority” job candidates “whiten up” their resumes, so that prospective employers don’t apply stereotypes. For example, Chinese people put their American nickname on their resume, or Black people just use initials (women do this, too). And they scrub activities that give away their ethnicity. SHEESH! I now see why blind resumes are NOT such a bad idea after all.

I’ll conclude that if you are interested in learning more about racial bias, this book will keep you both engrossed and saddened. But, we need to learn the hard facts of just how much our unconscious biases are ingrained in us before we can work to lessen them consciously. I think it’s worth it.

If you’ve read this book, feel free to share your reactions to it!

Technology Staging a Revolt

This is also available as a podcast!

This is not funny. If I wasn’t trying to stay firmly grounded in rationality, I’d swear that the technology around me is trying to engage in a work slowdown or simply trying to quit. I’ve been having the worst time getting relatively simple things done. The most egregiously annoying thing has been trying to use my fancy headphones, both at home and in the office.

headphones on a desk, with a mask and a peace pillow in Japanese.

These headphones are wonderful when they work. They cancel sound. They have a high-quality microphone. They are comfy. BUT, both of my sets just suddenly cut out randomly, with no notice. I have to either plug them into a different USB port or mess with my settings in Zoom. That is getting really old.

In fact, the first time I recorded this as a podcast, the headphones stopped working, and the microphone in my webcam recorded it. Sounded like I was at the bottom of a well. Special.

But that’s not all. While I can hear in Zoom calls and on the Spotify app, I get nothing when trying to listen to videos or sound files in Chrome. To review e-learning, I have to open Edge. Eww. And, sadly, I can’t get into my podcast app to listen to what I’ve recorded. Occasionally it works. IT has no clue why this goes on. Buh.

To alleviate the issue with my headphones, which also cut out ridiculously when Zooming on my phone hotspot from the ranch, I have taken to doing calls on the phone. Because I have an iPhone X, I can’t use wired headphones. No, I have to use those cute li’l earpods. They are cute and little, all right, but they only last about an hour. I tend to have 6 hours of meetings every day. So, I end up using just one of the pods at a time, which makes people complain about my sound quality.

We are not on speaking terms, says the printer.

Maybe I should just type all my comments in chat, like my boss does.

Besides all this, I am unable to print, at all, period. Sometimes, like when you have a COVID form to fill out, you need to print things. I could get none of the printers at work to print today. They used to work, I swear! I don’t have a printer at either Cameron office, because every one I get works a month or two then refuses to speak to the laptop. I’m beginning to blame the laptop, only this happened before I got the current one. Grr.

keyboards, nice one that doesn't work. Boring one that does work. — Only the ugly wired keyboard works.

And, can I use my nice new fancy keyboard? Nope. It worked for a few weeks and stopped, too. Maybe there is some kind of haunted USB port issue going on. Yes, that’s it. My laptop is haunted and my peripherals are afraid of it, so they don’t work. I’m SO glad I figured this all out!

It’s a good thing I started that bullet journal! It’s analog! So far it has not rejected my input, my stickers, or my various pens.

And, on the other hand, it’s nice to have little annoyances like this to think about, because it means I’m not consumed with concerns about sick people, diseases spreading, political crud, and such.

So, what’s bugging you, eh?

Dreaming of Hugs

I’m in Austin this week, and my cul-de-sac neighbors held one of their happy hours to say belated happy birthday to me. We met in a driveway on a windy evening and had a nice time chatting and catching up.

One of our main conversation topics was how far along we are with our COVID-19 vaccinations. Since we are all “getting up there,” some are fully vaccinated, and others are getting close. Only a couple of us haven’t started, but they are slightly younger people who have been pretty isolated.

By the end of the visit, as we were saying goodbye, we realized that by the next book club we might be able to hug each other. I must sheepishly admit that I got all extra full of anticipatory glee at the thought of being able to hug Angela, who’s a nurse, in two weeks.

Oh my gosh. Hugs will be possible soon. And we might even be able to meet indoors in April or May!

And maybe we can have Sunday dinners with our friends again. It’s like a dream. A simple dream. To reconnect. Just talking to friends this evening felt so luxurious.

What simple luxury are YOU looking forward to in the coming months, if vaccinations go as planned? Please share!

What? Podcasting?

First, I’ll get this out of the way. I’ve decided to do a podcast to go along with this blog, since a lot of people would rather listen than read (like my husband). Some posts will work better than others. I’m still working out the kinks (like adding a consistent intro and ending blurb, but I do have three of them up at this site.

I have not gone overboard on this design.

Currently, it appears to be on Spotify, but maybe you can find it elsewhere. I did one post with an “automatically translate” feature, but I haven’t listened to it yet. Let me know if you listen. I can re-record if it’s totally awful.

I plan to slow down my speech (I do actually know how to record things, since I did it for my job for a long time), but I was having a lot of equipment issues at the ranch, due to my fancy headphones and/or something preventing me from playing back sounds.

Podcasts and Me

It’s sorta funny that I have resisted doing a podcast for so long, given my long history with them. Back when I was working for the nonprofit organization, one of my dearest coworkers, Elisabeth Lewin, was a podcasting pioneer, and she got us all set up doing podcasts from our international conference. I was (and still am) in awe of her equipment. I learned a lot from her.

I took what I learned and was able to help my musician housemate, Jeff Tveraas, get a website and all the accoutrements needed to set up a podcast of his own, which was called the Austin Connection. I really enjoyed those and was sad when he had to stop producing them, and wish the old episodes were still available.

I’ve watched as every single radio show I listen to has developed its own podcasts, as every vaguely famous news person has done, etc. And I’ve seen some of the blogs I read move to podcast-only format. I even pay money to a couple of people to support their blogs or YouTube channels that I actually don’t listen to. It’s obvious where the trend is going.

Nonetheless, I am apparently NOT an audio learner, so I never enjoyed listening to them, myself. I’ll listen to some of the ones Lee shares, but for some reason, I have no patience with wading through the sponsorship information, the plugs for how to obtain them, and the listening itself. I blame the fact that I read so quickly on my impatience with spoken media. I can zip through a blog, unless I pause to enjoy photos, while a podcast takes, well, as long as a podcast takes (same with learning off YouTube; I can’t stand all the blather).

Still, as I mentioned, I recorded e-learning videos for many years, which were like podcasts with accompanying slideshows. I’m not afraid of microphones, audio editing equipment or anything like that. I could easily make podcasts, but didn’t want to bother with all the uploading and editing.

So Now

When WordPress started hounding me to turn my blog posts into podcasts, I ignored it for a while. Then I started thinking about my husband, who will not go onto Facebook unless he has to say something for work and who hasn’t been able to figure out how to get my blog posts mailed to him. He does listen to podcasts, pretty much all the time, including when he is sleeping. What better way to reach him than to speak to him in his sleep! Creepy fun, right?

Plus, it’s something else to do! I love me a good project! The Anchor software that WordPress promotes makes it easy to do a podcast, as long as you have a microphone. There’s not a lot of editing software that I can use, so I’ll just leave my mess-ups in there. And I will see if I can get a son to record me some soft guitar music (NOT lengthy) to put on the opening.

The folks at Anchor claim you can make money from people subscribing to your blog. Yeah, right, the people at WordPress say I can make money from people looking at ads on my blog, and so far I have amassed nearly $60 (in over a year)!

But, what the heck, if you are a fan of my blog, or want to support the podcasting thereof, you are very welcome to subscribe. After all, I’ll need income after I retire.

You are ALSO very welcome to continue to read my blog for fun, entertainment, or to help you get to sleep. I’m happy to have an outlet for venting and sharing nature stuff, but, if someone wants to listen to me talk, they can do that, too. Just look for The Hermits’ Rest on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I love subscribers, and will not turn down supporters!