Hey. Just a short post asking you all to think of me as I sit near fire ants until 4 pm. I’m doing yet another Milam Touch of Love event. I’m in charge so I can’t leave. And sun is my enemy! I got sunstroke in high school. Since then, ugh.
Meghan and Michael day hi.
Luckily one of our volunteers brought a porta-cool thing, which should help, and our canopy will help once the sun is higher. And I have ice. And a neck wrap.
Porta Cool!
The good news is we are near the coffee guy. And he’s open!
Coffee guy.
More later! Come by the Cameron FunFest and Barbecue Cookoff to see me.
Ever since we bought the Hermit Haus, I have wondered why there are giant holes in the empty lot next to the old church.
I’ve had many theories, such as buried oil tanks, buried treasure, buried people—you know scary things. I also asked a few people but they all said I don’t know you tell me.
These are the big holes. The mowers just mow them evenly.
A couple of these holes are rather deep. I covered up one of them with Herman’s house, which was a good idea, but two of them are just sticking out in the middle of the empty field. They are just inviting me to sprain another ankle. Danger! Danger! Continue reading “Mystery Holes”
Today I had lots of time to work on my blogs. However, my darn keyboard decided to stop working a couple of days ago. That means I have to type on my laptop which is nowhere near my actual screen. I cannot blog this way.
The “n” key has been broken for months. But I liked this keyboard.
I ordered a new keyboard on Tuesday. It was scheduled to come yesterday. I waited and waited and waited and visited the poor receptionist many, many times. But no keyboard.
I left for home around 10 minutes until 5 PM. Would you like to guess what time the keyboard arrived? That would be 4:52 PM. I’m annoyed.
I, too, say GRRR about lots of stuff.
I am shaking my fist once again. But this time, Elizabeth Warren is doing it for me. She’s coming to work with me today, because Jen asked me to bring her. She will join Ruth Bader Ginsburg in being annoyed at all the stuff.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post that I dictated on the phone. That was an interesting experiment. Now I really DO write just like I talk.
I thought my son who’s still speaking to me was coming over this evening, but when we realized he wasn’t coming, Anita and I had only one thought: let’s unpack more boxes! Sure, it was over 100 degrees again, but we hydrated and got to unpacking.
Anita is very proud of her hard work. Now we can park n the garage and be able to open doors on both sides!
Unfortunately, the first box we went after contained a faux flower arrangement that had been sitting in the “art niche” at our Braesgate house for close to 20 years. I’m thinking it hadn’t been dusted very often ever. I think we lost a couple of years of lung health as we picked up fake flower after fake flower, trying to find what was at the bottom of the box.
So much art on my art shelves now!
I’m certainly glad what was at the bottom was my Charlie Brown pottery vase. (He was a relative on my mother’s side who used clay from near the St. John’s River to make raku ware, which it turns out was a little brittle, so the top of my vase broke.) By the way, somewhere around the house is a Christmas ornament he made – the article I linked to above said Vice President Mondale had one in his house, too.
This isn’t a part of the country I expect to see robins (American ones, which I just read are closely related to European blackbirds). But I got to enjoy listening to and observing a mother and fledgling today on a break at work.
Mom is at right looking for more worms.
I watched the mother, who was as big as her child, poke in the ground cover and find at least three worms, which she unceremoniously stuck down the fledgling’s gullet. It would then begin begging anew.
Please, Mom, I’d like some more.
Those weren’t the only sounds I heard, though. There were Carolina wrens bopping all over the trees and bushes, too. I love to listen to them. Sorry for the poor photo quality. It was dark and the birds weren’t exactly posing for me.
There was also a much smaller, more gray bird with a beautiful song. It appeared to be wren-like, but it could also have been one of those tiny vireos. It would not hold still but was singing mightily.
I just thought y’all might enjoy some nature on this here nature blog!
First off, let me admit that I’m in a more fragile and sensitive state than usual, so things I might usually brush off as, “Oh, that’s just Person X being person X,” are hitting a raw nerve today. And as we noted with Vlassic last week, hitting a nerve can cause pain and involuntary reactions. Ow!
At first I was thinking that I was just bugged by stuff on Facebook, but then I spot the annoyances popping up in LinkedIn articles, Tweets (naturally, and why am I reading Twitter when I’m feeling overwhelmed?), and even in face-to-face interactions.
It happens all the time, and is one of those habits I started noticing when I had small children and was practicing very hard to adhere to the directive to:
Give information, not advice
La Leche League
The idea was that people don’t react well when told what to do and what to think about any topic (breastfeeding being a great example). My training also reminded me over and over again not to give out advice if I wasn’t asked for it. In other words, if someone parents differently from me, that’s their right, and it may well be working out just fine for them.
Sometimes when there’s nothing particularly bad going on in your life, there’s enough going on with your friends that it makes your head spin.
From Oprah.com
I joke that when that recent Mercury retrograde period ended, supposedly making communication easier, it suddenly caused people to just start spilling all their past indiscretions, stuff perhaps no one really needed to know, and painful memories.
at the ranch, that is. There have been a few tidbits and sightings I wanted to share.
Weather.Ugh.
It’s bone dry, but there aren’t any bones.
First off, I know it’s hot and dry here, because the little runoff pond is bone dry. The dogs went in there to check for crawfish, but didn’t find any.
And the ground is now full of holes and big, long cracks. Along with extra-crunchy grass, this tells you we’re in the bad part of summer.
Hello, down there.
Yep. It’s hot. But there’s a stiff breeze making the front porch bearable for the moment.
Other Stuff
Three prickly pears.
Walking with the dogs always brings discoveries. Today I found things in threes, like these morning glories and prickly pear fruit. (Which reminds me of the carne asada con nopales I had Friday. Mmm. )
Three morning glories
As I was looking at the cactus, I heard a thump. Just to my left I saw that a large grasshopper had flown into the very sturdy web of one of our numerous yellow garden spiders. I started recording only seconds after it landed, which explains why I didn’t turn the phone landscape. 40 seconds later it was wrapped and paralyzed.
At least it didn’t suffer. Sara asked if I’d speeded the video up, but nope. Those spiders can MOVE!
It’s so weird. Those are holes, not raised mounds.
The other natural phenomenon I’ve been watching are the traps laid by doodlebugs, as they call ant lions here. I watch the ones over by the tack room spitting dirt out of their traps. It looks like little explosions.
Chicken Time
And I’ve figured out that two of the chickens roost next to their food. At least the other five seem okay back in their coop. For now. Tyler cleaned up the place where Buffy was hiding, but she still hangs out in the barn.
Buffy and Big Red stake their claims.
And I have a final piece of good news. After spending quite some time trying to figure out who could fix the cattle guard leading to the cabin, I looked up this morning to see the Vrazels had found someone. We thought that was part of their lease agreement, but Ralph had informed me it was my job. Dodged a bullet there. I thanked Mr. V. And the welder a whole bunch.
Dim photo of welding truck.
To sign off, here’s a differential grasshopper. Hey, it’s not a spider!
I’m never going to be a great equestrienne, and that’s fine with me. I started way too late, ran out of money for lessons, and don’t have enough time to really get to be great. But, I’m better than I was, anyway!
One of the things I’ve always wanted to be able to do when I’m out riding Apache is to take pictures of some of the interesting plants, wildlife, and scenery I see when I’m out riding around the Hermits’ Rest. Up until recently, I haven’t been comfortable taking my phone along on rides, because my phone is a good one, and I could break it if I fall.
Walking the line of evergreens.
Sara has an inexpensive phone she uses, so that if there’s an emergency she can let our spouses know to come help. I just relied on that, until a few weeks ago when Sara ordered us some really nice holders that have a water bottle and a cell phone pocked in them. They attach to the front of the saddle and can be secured really well, so they don’t bounce and irritate our mighty steeds.
It’s not even noon on Saturday, and we’ve already had a busy and fun weekend. This may be a long post, but it’s just nice to write about something that went right. I’m hoping we were able to be good to others and relieve a bit of stress for them.
Yesterday, Kathleen and Chris came by, with Lee’s brother Jim and Eva, who is usually the caregiver for Jim’s wife, but was along on this trip to help out with Jim. Also among the visitors was 14-year-old Joe, Eva’s son, who gets to do some heavy lifting and helping out.
The gang’s all here.
Rose Gold. It’s subtle.
We all had a nice lunch at Dutchtowne, of course, where I spent a bunch of time taking pictures of my hair, because the light was good. I did also take a picture of the group.
After the business reason for the trip, in which Lee, Jim, and I signed a bunch of papers and Mandi notarized them, the family ran off to do errands in Temple (Vlassic asked to go with them, so he did, that traveling fool), while I tried to work as people took down the ceiling in our offices. I was forced out due to dust. This will be a topic of the Hermit Haus Redevelopment blog shortly.
These are the big holes. The mowers just mow them evenly.
The Hermits' Rest 