The Hermits' Rest

Nontoxic Equanimity

Having written posts on toxic negativity and positivity in the past, I was really happy to hear the last part of an NPR presentation on toxic positivity this morning. I wanted to hear it, so I searched and couldn’t find it. I was bummed, because I liked the fact that the therapist being interviewed talked about how not all positivity is bad and that some negativity may well be justified.

angry suna — This was my sweaty face of negativity when I found out someone spoofed my Instagram account yesterday.

Finally, my brain kicked in and I found the article on the website of my local station, KUT. They have great original programming, too! If you get a chance, read the transcript or listen to the interview.

So, in her discussion with the KUT reporter, Junice Rockman makes the point that a lot of us are looking for the good things in life right now, since there’s so much ickiness going on in 2020 (obviously she didn’t say ickiness). And that’s fine. As the interview pointed out:

“…there is nothing wrong with positivity, as long as it is not used to:

deny
disconnect
disregard
disassociate, or
dismiss someone else’s ideas.”

That rang true to me. Some of the things I’ve heard and memes I’ve read seem to insist that you’re not good enough if you can’t always be positive. Your just not trying hard enough, don’t love yourself enough, or are just trying to be Debbie Downer.

The heart of the matter is that it’s unrealistic to expect people to be either happy all the time, or eternally sad failures. To me that’s just common sense. Rockman says this kind of all-or-nothing thinking doesn’t work.

It’s like a pendulum. It has to be all one thing or not. It’s helpful for us to move away from that all-or-nothing thinking. It doesn’t have to be either-or. It can be both.
Junice Rockman, KUT, 7/29/2020

By the way, to make me positive, just show me a picture of my son and his little family. Aww. Photo shamelessly appropriated and used without permission.

And that’s it. We can be positive about one thing and negative about another, and they can coexist! These days a lot of us are having a hard time. We have lost jobs, are lonely, are sick, or upset by the news. That is absolutely okay, and it can’t hurt to also find what’s still pretty good. Really, isn’t life always this way?

Even in good times we have challenges. My goal is to have a healthy viewpoint and put my feelings into perspective. That means when I climb out of despair, I don’t run straight up Pollyanna Mountain! When I talk to people in my life, I’m going to mention things that bother me as well as things that bring joy.

And if someone judges me for veering off to one side or another, they may need to check for their own toxicity and cut me some slack. I’ll return the favor. My brain is too full to be all judgy right now. I love everybody who’s doing the best they can.

Now, onto the challenges of the day!

Bumming with Bovines

I am just going to share what makes life worth living these days, and that’s my charming ranch companions. It’s really fun to go for walks with the cows (and horses). You’re reminded that humans are just part of this world, and that every other living being is also out there having adventures.

I didn’t have a bovine traffic jam this afternoon, but probably because I walked.

Instead I enjoyed the greetings of my favorite heifers, who are now getting ready for babies of their own. As always, the great and bold 18-1 came right up to say hi. She’s just a golden cow.

After greeting her and the others, I checked on Apache and Fiona. Apache seems to be gradually improving, even when I let him out to graze a good while every evening. On the other hand, now Fiona seems a little stiff. My plan is a thorough foot check tomorrow.

Apache and I have fun on our walks. I sing him songs, and that gets him walking faster. Perhaps he’s trying to escape the singing. In any event, I’m happy he’s getting exercise and I get to pet and love on him.

On the way back, I was wiping the sweat off my eyes, and saw a brown blur over by the cabin. Hey, that’s a heifer on this side of the fence. She must have jumped the cattle guard.

I went up and saw it was good ole 18-2! She has a cute blonde tail. I said, “You know you aren’t supposed to be here!” I swear she gave me the same look Penney gives when she’s guilty. And she ambled over to the cattle guard and jumped over!

Tyler V says she’s done it before. It doesn’t hurt anything for her to be over there, unless she breaks into the silage or something. She couldn’t get away, because there’s a gate farther down right now.

My guess is that when she’s full size and all pregnant, there will be no more jumping. I do enjoy this group of young ladies I’ve enjoyed since birth.

The Dreaded Negativity Spiral

In her newsletter today, Nataly Kogan of Happier Now, shared this tidbit that spoke to me:

Here’s the question I ask myself that helps me to immediately pause my negative thought spiral when I get caught in one:

Is this way of thinking helpful?

The answer is always no. Every single time. It’s amazing how simple yet powerful this question is.

Once I realize that indulging my negative thoughts isn’t helpful, I can make a choice to shift. It’s not always easy, but it’s absolutely possible.
Happier, with Nataly Kogan, July 28, 2020

At this very moment, I’m not in a negativity spiral; in fact I’m feeling as normal as a person getting ready for a reorg and dealing with sick people all around me can feel. But, from what I hear and from my own experience, the negativity can jump out and make its presence known quite suddenly and quickly. I think even the most resilient among us is finding it challenging to keep looking to the bright side these days.

The shift from negativity that Kogan refers to is what intrigues me. It seems like there may be lots of ways to accomplish this, and I’d be interested in knowing how some of you do it.

A couple of my strategies are:

Get going with the supportive self talk. Remind yourself that you are doing your best and your best is good enough, in fact, great!
If it’s someone’s actions or words that send you toward negativity, see if you can come up with a possible motivation or intent that is positive; remembering things don’t always come across the way people intend them to.
If you’re overcome with a mood out of nowhere, quickly engage in your favorite mood-changing activities: take a walk, do deep breathing, sing, visit your favorite funny meme or video site. The sooner you do it, the less chance that a mood can grip you for long.

Being good to ourselves really helps us be more resilient and optimistic (okay, some of us are aiming for neutral, I know). Nataly Kogan also gave out these ideas today, so I’ll share them, too:

While I’m at it, I’m going to reach out to a couple of people I know are not feeling well, which always helps me feel more positive, myself.

Onward in good cheer!

New Stuff! Why?

I’ve always loved getting new stuff. I didn’t get a lot in my early years, and in my twenties I spent a lot of time being creative with tables made of boxes and furniture rescued from the dumpster. It was fine. I had fun, and all my new stuff was new books and records.

In grad school, I would have re-used an old mirror left in an apartment, just like we did at the Pope house.

I’m positive my extreme enjoyment of new things made me look like I was bragging. I know that, because my beloved high school sweetheart told me so. I was so mortified that I over-reacted and tried real hard to play anything I acquired down. I’ve had my car since 2017 and never wrote an ode to British Racing Green. That took a lot of restraint.

All the remodeling we’ve done over the past decade or so has let me get shiny new things, then pass them on. I think that’s ideal.

I’ve got to pick a lot of shiny sinks, but I don’t have to own them all. It’s still fun to open the box.

Still, nothing cheers me up like a tiny indulgence. So, back in April I ordered this extra cute keyboard and mouse off a Facebook ad. Now, I could tell it was coming from China. So I didn’t buy the most expensive one.

I waited and waited. The tracker kept saying it was in the same place. I finally contacted the company, expecting no response and a chance to write a bad review. But no, they said they’d look into it.

A week later I got a note saying it was lost somehow. Did I want my money back, or could they expedite me one? Sure, send it. By this time, I’d forgotten what I ordered.

It only took ten days to rush across the ocean and get to me, after a wee customs delay. Look at all those stickers.

Ooh, the box was pretty!

And look at that hilarious Candy keyboard! What was I thinking? On the other hand, it will add a jolt of pink to my new office when it’s done.

It came with a little brush to clean the keys and some cute little Chinese stickers.

Thankfully, the cute and clacky mechanical keyboard is fun to use, once you get used to it. And the mouse is just fine.

In conclusion, that was fun. And I can use the old keyboard at the ranch, where I have a giant, awkward keyboard I’ve never gotten used to. So yeah, I got a frivolous keyboard and it brightened my day.

Guess I have to give that company a good review.

Happiness Is New Life

As I was reading my morning news/opinion pieces, I was reminded by the Rev. Jim Rigby that it’s important to remember that there’s good stuff going on today. Go to his Facebook page to see his ten reasons to be grateful today. What struck me was this:

What a shame it would be if we forgot to celebrate the fact we are alive, that we are all connected to each other, or that underneath all our problems we are still expressions of a cosmic process. What a shame if, in the middle of this terrible storm we did not pause to appreciate the courage and nobility of those who struggle on our behalf.
Jim Rigby, Facebook, July 27, 2020

To that I want to add that we continue to celebrate that life and death go on, regardless. While I heard of the death of an old colleague this morning, I also saw beaming baby photos from three other friends.

My morning also featured this new heifer, who doesn’t seem to understand that cars have the right of way! The old ones politely moved.

And last night, when I went out with Lee to look at the frogs, he asked me what a particular plant growing up out of the disturbed earth was. Usually what we see are the plants that typically come up in disturbed soil, but this one looked familiar.

It’s a leaf, all right. I didn’t take a picture of the whole thing.

It was not a hackberry or a cedar elm, even if the leaves have serrated edges. It looked like, hmm, what is that tree in the field on the other side of the woods? Thank goodness I have iNaturalist!

Sure enough, it’s a cottonwood, which is also a native tree, but we only have ONE on our property. We had just been talking about how we REALLY need some trees. And boom, we have one! New life to be happy about.

We may or may not move it. It might look nice next to the little pond. I know their seeds are a big messy, but I love the way the leaves shimmer in the wind and the seeds fly around like snow. We only have the one tree, because cattle eat up any saplings in the pasture. Now we have one with a chance to become a nice shade tree, eventually.

The rain that fell all over the county completely missed our ranch. There was a little peninsula of nothingness, and we were in it. But we got a nice sunset.

Now I just have to mark it so no one will weed-eat it or pull it up! I’ll just stay optimistic about this, and carry it into the rest of life today. Back to work on the ole kanban cards.

Boop, Boop, Boopie, Boopedon

Prairie boopies are fascinating grasshoppers, really!

I figure I better follow up a review of a controversial with a discussion of a controversial natural object: the grasshopper. This is one of those love it or hate it topics. I seem to know an awful lot of people who are really wigged out at the appearance of a grasshopper (many in my own family). I have naturalist friends who are fascinated by them and know a LOT more about them than I do.

This being a big year for the hoppers, I thought I’d learn more about the ones here at the Hermits’ Rest, and I’ve been sharing some photos here and there, and did a post on their cool names. I am not able to get them by net (even though I keep saying I’ll buy one, I forget), so most of my photos are rather blurry, but I’ve had fun identifying them, with help from my expert friend Eric on iNaturalist.

Most of the grasshoppers you see around the ranch are boopedons, a name you just have to love. More on them later.

By the dark color and size, I now know this is a male.

I did find a really pretty grasshopper (if you think they can be pretty) with a cool name over by our church office on Friday. These are the Obscure Bird grasshoppers (Schistocerca obscura). The stripes on their backs and the dots on their legs make them very striking.

Quite obscure!

Back at the ranch, today I went on a hunt, and only found one grasshopper-like insects that weren’t Boopedon (to be precise, the prairie boopie, the best name ever), a katydid.

Not a boopie
Not a boopie? WRONG! It’s a female

It turns out that male and female prairie boopies (Boopedon gracile) look very different, so what I’d thought was a different species, was, indeed, just a female of the same species. I learned this when I FINALLY found a detailed article on them.

I also learned that “Prairie boopies are typically found in dense grasses, including prairies, rangeland, and savanna habitats. In Oklahoma, this species was reported to be more abundant in overgrazed prairies than natural ones.” (This is from Grasshoppers of the Western US, a really interesting site.) I’m happy to know they aren’t officially classified as pests (unless you hate grasshoppers, I guess).

Anyhow, as I went about observing away, I realized the front field was a like a sea, with little bobbing boopie boats on it.

Every brown thing you see is a grasshopper. Bobbing boopies.

Then I noticed that they were very fond of the nightshade plants next to the driveway.

Twelve boopies jumped off this plant when I took another step closer.

I quickly realized these grasshoppers are at the height of adulthood. Most of them were mating. They don’t need privacy (being grasshoppers). You can see how different the female looks in this picture.

That’s four of them. And do you see why I am annoyed all the rain skirted us today?

As I walk along, I tend to send boopies flying away (but only males, because I just learned the females are flightless!). Here’s video proof. Warning: I think I sing. Lucky for you it’s only 35 seconds long.

Other than how hard these guys feel when they hit me as I drive Hilda, I’ve gotten fond of these guys. Both Vlassic and the chickens love to eat them, and at the moment I don’t have any tender plants they will kill.

It’s been fun watching them grow, and I guess somewhere out there will soon be a lot of grasshopper eggs. I’ll have to look those up next…sigh, no I won’t. I’m crushed: “Little is known about the reproduction of prairie boopies” (from the above web link). Well, we have plenty of them here, even though they apparently aren’t often found in high densities (I beg to differ).

I guess I’ll be booping along now. That’s all I know about the prairie boopie. I lie. They are also known as the graceful range grasshopper, and were identified by Rehn in 1904.

I bet I’d get an A on this report in high school. (Get me away from the keyboard.)

Book Report: Too Much and Never Enough

Book reports are not the most popular of my blog posts. The one from yesterday got 9 whole hits. But, if I ever need to know what books I was reading starting in 2018, I know where to look!

I had a feeling I’d read Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary L. Trump all in one sitting. I came close. Was it some sort of morbid curiosity? I guess so. But I have always wondered how the bellicose and supremely self-confident persona of the person currently serving as US President came about. I figured he must have had a really weird family.

Yes. He had a really weird family. The fact that his father was a gen-u-ine psychopath and narcissist and his mother was emotionally (and physically) not there during his formative years explains a lot. Also, you know, genetics probably played a role; he seems to have gotten more of his dad’s stuff than some of his other siblings, who each didn’t fare well in their household of origin to varying extents.

You can read Mary Trump’s assessment for yourself, so that’s enough about him for me. I was more interested in Mary (forgive me, but I’m not good at typing her last name). When a family member writes a tell-all, you tend to think, hmm, what is their agenda here? What’s their beef? And Mary, to her credit, completely admits she has a beef or two, like how her father was treated by the family patriarch, how no one did jack shit to help the current President deal with any of his issues and learn that anything whatsoever counted other than himself and looking good, how any disagreement with the family’s current lies about itself was punished incredibly harshly (like not mentioned in obituaries, written out of wills, etc.).

She’s NOT an impartial observer, but only someone who has been IN the family could write about it, thus, we get her viewpoint. I think she does a pretty good job at being fair, and you can see she loves many of her family members.

While acknowledging her part in the family drama, Mary kept me riveted while laying out the series of events that got us to where we are today, and like one of my friends who has also already finished the book, you almost feel sorry for young DJT. He didn’t stand a chance. I just wanted to know what horror that family would perpetuate next as I sped from chapter to chapter.

Two of my favorite bits in the book come toward the end, so let me share:

“Nobody has failed upward as consistently and spectacularly as the ostensible leader of the shrinking free world…Donald today is as much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information.”
p. 197

Happy days. I read this just before reading about Federal troops continuing to detain peaceful protesters around the country, just before reading that some random angry dude in Austin shot and killed a protester who was trying to stop him from driving into a crowd that included his paraplegic wife, just before reading about yet another party full of mask-less people hugging and celebrating in my town. Yow.

It’s frequently suggested that we just look for the good in life right now, and not worry about things beyond our control. And I’m all for remembering that it’s not all bad, I have amazing friends and family, and the universe is amazing. However, not to acknowledge what is going on, to hope it will all go away (like so many people are doing with respect to the Narcissist in Chief) seems to me like fiddling while Rome burns.

If everyone sticks their heads in the sand, we’ll suffocate. Mary Trump’s book begs the people of this country and the world to actually DO something to help us get leadership with a focus on making life good for all, not just looking good for one’s long-dead father.

PS: These are my opinions and interpretations. I have no intentions of trying to change anyone’s minds on any political topic. Everyone makes their own decisions based on their upbringing and values. It’s okay.

It Rained! And Other Signs of Life!

It being July in Texas, we are always prepared for a scarcity of rain and a lot of hot days. All we can hope for is to get some remnants or edges of a hurricane. Well, that seems to be happening right now, and since last night three bands of rain have come through our little ranch. The total rainfall so far is an exciting .15″ – not much, but it is better than nothing. We usually get about an inch per month, so we’re hoping that the big rain to the south of us sends us a bit more later tonight or tomorrow.

The third wave of rain as it approached. I could hear the thunder when I took the picture. The plant in the foreground is Lindheimer’s doveweed (Croton lindheimeri).

The rain lowered the temperature, so I was able to get out and look around some today. Get prepared for a lot of pictures of things that are damp!

I’m always happy when there is new life. And even before I left the house, I realized that our avocado seed is getting pretty robust in the root department. Now we just need a stem!

Speaking of trees, we now have one in the back yard. I didn’t mention it earlier, because I was sad about it. You see, we bought a Shumard oak back when Kathleen and I bought those plants for our office. The guys had set it next to the RV, and I guess forgot about it. I watered it every few days, not realizing I’d needed to water it EVERY day, so by the time we went to plant it, it was mostly dead leaves.

It’s a tree. Not much of a tree, but a tree nonetheless.

But, Chris said its stem was still alive, so he planted it in the back corner (if I could use the backhoe thing, I’d have planted it). He then proceeded to set up a fine watering system that piggybacks on the chicken system and has been able to water it every other day or so.

New leaves, and the life-giving water hose.

When I went out to say hi to the chickens to day, I looked over at the sad tree, and lo and behold, there are lots and lots of little new leaves appearing. It’s coming back! I’m so glad the rain is here to help out. It may even someday provide shade to the chickens and to the cattle behind us. That may be a while.

I found some other encouraging things as I was walking around today. I saw a young snake next to the tiny pond, and managed to get a picture of it before it dove underwater. As I patiently waited for it to come back up (with no success), I did notice a freshly shed snake skin near my feet. I bet I know who that belonged to!

The little snake, just before diving.
The snake’s old skin.

I enjoyed looking at dragonflies, turtles, and bullfrogs in the rapidly shrinking pond. The rain will at least give it a bit of fresh water. I’m hoping that the tropical rain tomorrow or the next day will refill it and the other ponds.

This guy kept dipping into the water then zipping off. It was not easy to get a picture. Note dead boopie grasshoppers on the shore. It could explain why the bullfrogs don’t appear very hungry.

Maybe the grass will turn green again, too. The chickens will like that. By the way, they’ve all settled down now that Clarence is the guard rooster. He has figured out how to get to the food inside the chicken run, so all I have to do is make sure he has water every day (though Lee thinks he’s found the pond behind the house).

I got to watch this great egret snatch a fish out of the pond behind the house. This is where Clarence could be going if he runs out of my nice water in the dish.

New life always signifies hope for me. That little stick of an oak tree is my symbol of hope after adversity for now!

Book Report: The Madwoman and the Roomba

So, this book, The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem, by Sandra Tsing Loh, was this month’s Austin neighborhood book club selection. I think we were all looking forward to a nice, lightweight comedy book to get us through yet another month of being unable to hang out together and hug.

Indeed, Ms Loh is a really gifted teller of tales, and her slice of middle-aged life in California stories are very funny. I laughed a lot. People in my age bracket who are a little hippie-dippy like me will see a lot of themselves in her desires to live in her Costco massage chair (we ALSO got the big discount), her honest assessments of her mothering skills, her ambivalence about having divorced her kids’ dad, and such.

I was really enjoying this trip through a recent year in her life. Then it hit me. This was a trip through 2018 or 2019, and certainly not 2020. I’d be reading along and suddenly think, “Ah, meeting friends at a coffee shop, I miss that,” or, “Look at her enjoying a relaxing trip to Costco, I remember just browsing and taking my time.”

dog in massage chair — Our massage chair from Costco does get used pretty often, but in between times, it’s one of Carlton’s beds.

In the end, the funny book about a woman’s quirky family and friends (I love her domestic partner, especially, and just about spit out my beverage when he was revealed to be a disciple of the hugging saint Amma *and a bunch of her entourage appeared) turned out to be a little time capsule of the past. I ended up doing as much sighing as I did laughing as I pretty much devoured every page of Loh’s writing.

I’ll probably read some more of her stuff when I need a humor break, though it might be more funny next year.

sunset in Texas — Look at all those clouds! It may rain today or tomorrow.

By the way, each chapter in the book suspiciously reminded me of a blog entry. I wish I were as funny as Loh, because I’d have a book ready to go. Mine would be rather more whiny and angsty, and totally devoid of other characters, because hardly anyone I know would want to be in a book. Well, I’ve talked myself out of THAT idea pretty quickly.

I hope you have a good book, television show (I recommend Star Trek: Picard), or project to fill your weekend with fun!

*I wondered how all the Amma followers are doing now that hugging is not such a great idea, so I looked it up. It turns out they are donating a lot of money to coronavirus research, and interacting online, like the rest of us. Keep spreading that love!

How ARE the Dogs? Lively.

Every so often someone asks for an update on the canines. Unlike the chickens and horses, all the dogs are currently FINE. sure, they have their challenges, but they aren’t bad. Let’s start with the smallest.

Vlassic

He is doing well and seems happy here. His favorite part of the day is going for rides with me in Hilda the utility vehicle, or sitting on my lap on the porch. I know he’d like to go see Pickle and Anita, but that’s not possible now.

He also enjoys his time with Jim (Lee’s brother) in the RV, and Jim adores him.

Gracie Lou

Chris and Kathleen’s dog is in heaven with so many dogs to play with and places to sleep. She insinuated herself into our pack as gracefully as her name. She loves going from lap to lap and shedding long, white hair on us all. She’s a very nice dog, indeed.

Penney

Penney is still a very strange dog. She’s both sweet and annoying, timid and aggressive, etc. Penney still won’t let Vlassic in the house, but cowers at the other dogs.

She is one of those wiggly, slinky dogs you have to discipline carefully or they will pee all over the place. She always wants to attach to a human and paws at your book or phone If you don’t pay attention.

Where Penney was as I typed that paragraph.

She usually sleeps way too close to me and takes up my space. For quite some time she’d wake up and paw me and lick my face in a most irritating way. I think I finally got her to stop. Yay. She cut my lip with her nails! Too much love.

Lee is very devoted to her, and she and the other dogs play all the time. She’s happy, even if she’s weird.

Carlton

He is still the cutest dog ever, and still a bit of a klutz. He loves to run and play, but no longer gets to hang out in front of the house, because he chased cows too much.

We started shock collar training for that and hope to continue soon, when Kathleen is able to again.

He likes to sleep by my feet or lay on my chair when Penney isn’t using it. Other than barking lots to inspire the rest of the pack to play, he’s a wonderful pup. He has my heart.

Harvey

Harvey is doing really well, though he still growls a lot and acts grumpy. He loves to play with Vlassic, but Penney’s groveling bothers him.

We think he’s in love with Alfred. He sure wants doggie intimacy with him. He also spends hours grooming Alfred’s fur and ears. It’s really sweet to watch the two of them together. They’re like an old married couple.

Harvey’s favorite humans are Chris and Canova, my sister. Chris plays rough and tumble with him, and he gets so happy it melts your heart. They are a lot alike, actually. With Canova he is very gentle.

Carlton annoys him by barking to get him to play. Growling will ensue.

Alfred

Alfred is in one of his stinky, shedding phases that require much vacuuming. Last time I had to empty the vacuum twice just to do the first floor.

He just wants to be petted, as long as you don’t try to get rid of his burs.

He’s really loving and gentle in the house, but patrols outside every night. We got nice fans to drown out his protective bark. When the alarm bark sounds, all the other dogs start up, though. You can’t miss that!

His love for us is very obvious. And I feel very safe with him around.

I’m amazed we have so many dogs, but they do each fill a spot in our hearts.