The Hermits' Rest

Visiting and Tinkering

Ah, darn. I had an entire post written on the phone yesterday, went to add a photo to it, and somehow discarded the whole post rather than just a photo I wanted to replace. I declared it a sign that I should just concentrate on doing rather than writing for a little while. So, for the past three days I’ve been doing stuff like crazy! I feel quite accomplished.

This picture of hour much the dogs love their giant puddle will distract you from being sad that I lost all my work, painstakingly typed on the phone.

A lot of this doing occurred because Chris and Kathleen came up on Friday and stayed until after lunch on Sunday. You see, Chris likes to work with his hands and is a great problem solver, so he did a bunch of things to help us around the office and the Hermits’ Rest house.

And because of that, I was inspired to do my own set of tasks, with Kathleen there to lend some muscle and brain power, too. We’re pretty lucky to have Lee’s clever relatives working with us on our projects!

On Friday, after Mandi and I worked like good employees, Chris assembled Kathleen’s lovely new office furniture, straight from the box. It’s probably the first “new” stuff we have in the Hermits’ Rest building. It’s all white and brass, and cutely modern. She brought lamps, which enabled us to really see the former storeroom, which turns out to be pretty cute (and clean, thanks to Melissa’ cleaning it last week).

Power Washing. Satisfying.

Yesterday was not a calm holiday, though at least I only worked a little bit blogging for all those companies I seem to be working with.

Generally we sit in the front of the house, because it has a good breeze.

It wasn’t calm, because my friend Mike and I got a wild hair and cleaned our entire back patio. The original goal was to get our gas grill up and running. We’d been waiting to use it to attach it to the gas outlet, but that has not happened, so Mike said, hey, let’s just go get a bottle of propane. Duh. That started us cleaning with our mighty power washer.

Looks like both some wrens and some spiders made a home in the grill while it’s been “resting.”

While he cleaned out the grill (including bird nest, of course, birds love grills), I power washed the “outdoor room” area, which is secretly a vortex for dog hair and dead bugs. Luckily I’d swept it out recently, so it wasn’t too bad.

Ghosts from the Past (good ones)

I’m not sure why this is the case, but when I was younger, I never looked back. When I left a place or an institution, I was really bad at maintaining ties. For example, I didn’t remain in touch with any friends from high school (other than my boyfriend, since he was with me in college and most of grad school) until the last few years. Facebook helped with that. And while I do have a couple of grad school friends, such as my favorite fellow student (that’s Steve H) and favorite professor (that’s Georgia M), I’ve lost touch with most people other than a random hello.

I lived here for four years, Murphree Hall. The room with the balcony was really cool. The Rathskeller was right across the road. Handy.

What about my four years of growth and learning at the University of Florida (where I never managed to see any of my high school friends who were there at the same time)? I have one, count ’em one, friend from my undergrad years. That’s Liz from Japanese class. Someone has to share those Swann-sensei memories with me.

That was true until this week, when I finally got back in touch with the only undergrad teacher I’d considered a friend. I’d thought about him often, through the years, and always had held him up as an example of how you really get educated in important things like social skills and political dialogue (that was drinking extremely cheap beer at the Rathskeller every week for three or four years). But, I hadn’t been in touch with him for a very long time, though I’d looked off and on.

Meanwhile, Over at the Cul-de-sac

The HOA promised us new plants in our Bobcat Lair cul-de-sac, and yesterday they got to work on it. When I left in the morning, there was just spray paint all over the place, but when I got back from work, there was evidence of change.

It’s sort of funny, though. Because we only have certain plants we can use, the new plants look just like most of the other plants in the neighborhood, so they blend right in. Only if you knew sotol has replaced yucca would you really notice.

Oh, you just wish that pink stuff was flowers. Nope. Deer would eat them.

Frog-a-rama

One of Lee’s recent projects around the ranch has been to build a little pond for the dogs to play in, and to conveniently keep water from draining into our driveway and making puddles where we don’t want them. The new pond is like a puddle on purpose.

Thank you for the swimming pool! We love the frog toys!

And as you can easily see, the dogs do like it! The water is remarkably clean, for such a small “pond,”and both Vlassic and Carlton are frequently seen wading in it. Lee has further plans for water features, which are fine with me as long as there’s something in them to eat mosquito larvae.

That’s where the frogs come in

As I was wandering around the pond on Sunday, I noticed movements. First I saw a LOT of little bugs swimming around or on the surface. Then I realized tiny frogs were jumping into the pond whenever I or a dog startled them.

Careful observation and standing still a while brought the delightful realization that heads were poking up out of the water! The first head was of a small brown frog or toad, about four inches long. It suddenly snapped up a flying bug (scaring the bejeezus out of me) and disappeared.

Next, one of my favorite sights on the ranch greeted me. The “eeping” frogs have a representative in the pond. These are large frogs that are bright green with striking orange eyes. I’m guessing they are green frogs, though I can’t get close enough to get a good photo.

Anyway, when frightened, these guys yell “eep” before jumping into the water. They were favorites of Brody’s. He’d run along the big pond and you’d hear a series of frog sounds all in a row.

So, it made me happy to see so much life in a pond that is really not much more than a large puddle and has only been around for two weeks!

Hate. What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing.

Hate seems to be cropping up all over the place. It’s not just “those other people I don’t like” that seem to be full of hate, but people close to me. I’ve been paying more attention lately to how people use the word “hate” in conversation, and I’ve also been thinking hard about my own relationship to the concept of hating.

When people I know use the word “hate,” it’s rarely in reference to a specific person or other entity. It’s always a group. A friend’s son declared, “I hate snakes! All of them!” A close friend asserted, “I hate cops!” I’ve heard, “I hate Trumpers” and “I hate libtards” (actually BOTH in the same day).

Don’t hate me just because weenie dogs like to jump up and poke you in the eyes (a thing Sue Ann once believed).

Does that make people feel better? Does hate help them feel superior to a group? Or does it help vent feelings of being wronged in the past?

Upon closer examination, I would bet both these people don’t hate every individual snake, police officer, Trump fan, or me. It’s just that nebulous category that gets their emotional reaction. It’s hard to hate things or people you know as individuals. So I say.

Cameron History Note

We’ve decided to activate the website for The Hermit Haus, our meeting center at the former First Christian Church in Cameron. We are interested in knowing more of the history of the church, and would love it if any of you know about events or people of interest that happened during the long history of the church.

First Christian Church member Marie Jones Braden

For example, did you know that Tommy Lee Jones’ mother was a church member? Apparently someone knew that and told Mandi! Head on over to the blog for the Hermit Haus and read more about Marie Jones Braden!

While you’re there, we appreciate suggestions for the website and blog, since it’s new. We are excited that we may get to host the El Camino Real Master Naturalist meetings and class there next year. Anyone else want to rent out the building for meetings? The upstairs is all set! The downstairs still needs air conditioning, though!

Summer Dead Stuff

Hey again. I’ve got some more deep thinking coming up, but first I have to say it’s hard to get anything at all done this time of year, because there’s always something interesting and deceased laying around.

Our first thing isn’t dead, just empty. That’s the tiny nest the baby finch tried to fall out of yesterday. It’s so small and exposed! But birds successfully fledged.

Awkward photo of awkward bird nest

The next best is bigger and more protected.

But at least two fledglings ended up on the porch this morning!

Continue reading “Summer Dead Stuff”

Did I Save a Baby Bird? And Summer Glory

Isn’t it about time I got back to nature observations? I think we all could use some sweet stories and pretty photos, so I’ll try to give you some of each.

I love this image of a wheel bug on the window at work.

The Dangling Finchlet

First, I’ll tell you about the house finch families who have taken up residence at the Hermit Haus, who entertain me and Mandi when we hang out by the carport. They sing and sing, and fly right next to us or sit in big groups chirping and looking spiffy (especially the males).

Well, as we came out to leave this afternoon and I was trying to load paper towels in the car, something brushed against me. I looked left, and there was a poor little baby finch flailing away, but unable to fly off, because a piece of nesting material was stuck on its leg.

Continue reading “Did I Save a Baby Bird? And Summer Glory”

Gone Viral? With Dignity, of Course!

Here’s a nice story! Yesterday, I was checking my blog statistics, like I do once or twice a day to see what posts go over well, and I noticed a big spike in hits. What? And wait, they are all coming from Twitter? Why are they all linked to my book review of Dignity (which I still can’t stop talking about).

Usually Facebook is way more than Twitter.

At most I usually get 3-4 hits from my Twitter posts every day. Part of that is because I don’t think all the posts get shared to Twitter, and part of that is that most of my friends and family are on Facebook and access it there. That’s fine, because I write this for friends and family, not to share my brilliant thoughts with the world (first, I’d have to HAVE a brilliant thought).