The Hermits' Rest

Woo hoo! Bird Excitement!

To me it was exciting, anyway. I finally heard, saw, and sorta photographed a Red-headed Woodpecker in Texas. I knew they were here, but they’d been eluding me all this time.

Yeah, only I could know that’s what’s in the photo. But Merlin identified it, and we all saw it flying between a live and dead tree. Tarrin sees them often. Now I have!

The dead tree, with a moody Black Vulture.

And as if that wasn’t enough, we saw Sandhill Cranes flying over on our way home. They must have been looking for a pond to land on. They are always a seasonal highlight.

Another bird highlight for me was getting to watch our local Belted Kingfisher do a big dive. It then politely sat on a limb in the back pond so I could practice using my new binoculars. Dang, they are good, even though smaller and lighter than my other ones.

At least you can tell this one is a Kingfisher.

Besides all the birding, it was a busy, busy work day followed by a busy horse lesson, where Apache made some progress. I was pretty tired from chasing my horses around, because though I’d successfully moved them from the front pasture but neglected to check if the gate behind the pens was closed. That was not fun, especially when Mabel tried to get in the trailer with Aragorn. I didn’t see that coming.

No photos of that action, so enjoy this morning’s sunrise. Huh. I took photos of both sunrise and sunset today!

Why Is Common Mestra So Common This Year?

The Common Mestra (Mestra amymone) is a butterfly I’ve been seeing very often this autumn. I went on and on about it the first time I saw one.

Since then, they’ve been everywhere, including parks I’ve visited, flitting here and there and enjoying the broomweed and frog fruit in particular. I’d never seen them before this year.

It’s pretty and orange on the underwings.

I’ve been trying to get better pictures of them, since I wanted to write about them. However, they are very busy looking for nectar or places to lay eggs, or something. I wonder if they’re able to find what they need, with no rain here all month.

You wouldn’t know it, but there are at least a half dozen in this photo of the Hermits’ Rest woods.

I looked up information on these delicate beauties. These Mestra live from our area down through Panama.

According to the descriptions in various websites, they like lantana flowers, but those are no longer blooming here. I go to wondering about their lifecycle this week as we saw dozens of Mestra at the Springtail Ridge hike.

This one shows the orange border nicely.

One of the women I was BioBlitzing with found a resource that said their host plant is Tragia or noseburn. I hadn’t looked up the common name for Tragia when I first read up on these butterflies. Suddenly it all made sense.

*Tragia urticifolia*, or Nettleleaf Noseburn growing in our woods.

This year was a really good one for this plant thanks to having more rain this summer than usual. This may have meant more Mestra eggs hatched this year than usual. All the women I talked to live in central Texas where there was this same rain pattern. They’ve all seen more of these than usual. One woman who’s been in Texas a long time remembered another year with lots of Mestra, then they went away until this year.

My guess is that good years for noseburn (not our most pleasant plant otherwise) mean good years for Common Mestra. I’ll be on the lookout next year to see if this is true.

After I got home from San Marcos, I was happy to get home to my birds and woods. I even heard a Swainson’s Hawk to greet me. I spent an hour or so taking photos of pollinators, since the Bioblitz ends today. I found more butterflies than I’ve been seeing lately, plus bees and wasps.

I look forward to a week with my dog and horse buddies and to ordering reading material to supplement what I learned last week, like Val Plumwood, Paul Taylor, and Paul Shepherd. I wrote those here so I won’t lose their names.

I Love to Walk, but

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

Yes. Walking is my favorite exercise. That’s clear to anyone who reads this little blog. Second is horseback riding. You get exercise and don’t even notice, because your brain is so engaged.

I get itchy if I don’t get my walking in. That became very obvious when I had Covid and in the weeks afterwards when my stamina left. However, today I did a LOT of sitting, since this was the only day of the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting when I didn’t have any field sessions. I walked around the hotel as fast as I could and got out for a ten-minute walk between sessions. Better than nothing, though, and it helped me make my move goal.

The oak tree I found in the parking lot is not native. It’s a Mexican white oak.

Let me say this; it was worth sitting around all day. I learned so much that I’ll use in the future today! This has really been a great conference, which I’m glad for since I’ve had to miss another conference with many friends.

Two of the sessions I attended were about interpretation. My mom would be pleased, since she always thought I was going to school to be an interpreter (I was a linguistics major). Note that the sessions were about interpretation of nature or historical locations. I want to be better at leading nature and bird walks at our new bird sanctuary.

Levels of experience you can help people achieve.

I have good ideas for stories I can tell to facilitate learning in different audiences.

Two other sessions I attended were about creatures I’m fond of, spiders and flies. Both were by the same woman, a nature writer whose stuff I’m familiar with from the Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, Sheryl Smith-Rodgers. She’s entertaining, though her presentations are relentlessly paced. I could have used more depth.

I especially liked some of her videos, many of which she took herself. There was one on a peacock spider that was extra cute, and one extreme closeup video of a mosquito (which is a fly) getting blood out of someone. It was both fascinating and nauseating.

The other thing I learned was how to tell a male from a female fly. Females have a gap between their compound eyes.

I wish I had videos of these presentations so I could look at the pictures more.

Another session I learned a lot from was on what lives in the aquifer under San Marcos. They get samples of what comes up from an old artesian well and analyze them.

I knew vaguely that there were blind cave salamanders, but, wow, there are all sorts of living things under the water in the limestone. It ranges from shrimp to snails to relatives of pill bugs. They’re all blind and colorless.

I think my brain got full today. I’m glad I could just enjoy dinner with nice folks, including my chapter friend Linda Jo. They gave out many, many awards, and I got to stand up for hitting 1,000 volunteer hours last year. Of course, that was dwarfed by two guys who hit 30,000 hours. Linda Jo and I think we started too late to get to that one. Also, we have other things in our lives.

Our program got an international award, though, and our bat monitoring program was voted the best master naturalist program in the US. Impressed.

I’ve had a darned good time even if I didn’t get much exercise today. I do look forward to heading home tomorrow to find out how the animals and people are holding up.

Look! Clouds! Maybe someday soon it will rain.

Still Having Nature Thrills

My idea of a thrill may not be yours. For me, seeing a new natural environment with new flora and fauna is often thrilling to me. Today’s field trip was to Ringtail Ridge Natural area, west of San Marcos. What an interesting spot!

We did a Bioblitz as part of the Texas Master Naturalist annual meeting set up by the Nature Trackers staff. The park was big enough that we could all disperse and not be on top of each other. I ended up with three excellent birders, and a good time was had by all.

We heard and saw warblers, a Kestrel, and many Black-crested Titmice. Finding interesting plants was a little harder, because it’s so dry right now, but we could tell this place is beautiful in spring and early summer. The topography was interesting, with many berms and old stone walls.

This velvet-leaf mallow really has velvety leaves.

Most of the thrills came from insects, which we found plenty of. There were so many common mestra butterflies that in one place it looked like fairies having a convention. There were also many goatweed leaf wings and caterpillars galore. One caterpillar was huge. It looked like a big ole hotdog chomping on a vine. It’s a future Vine sphinx moth. Spectacular!

We also found nests and not just bird nests! There were many turtle nests, too, with little eggshells. We had fun.

Eventually we returned to the hotel, where I did two normal conference sessions, one on how to have difficult discussions as Master Naturalists and one on nightjars (like Chuck-will’s widows and nighthawks. Such interesting and little studied birds.

The dinner presentation was by Jeff Gessas, one of the leaders of the leaders of yesterday’s moving session. I loved watching him talk, as he reminded me so much of my estranged older son, also a philosopher. Geez. They’re the same age. Still, I learned a lot that resonated with me.

It was a fun day, and I even got to hang out with folks from my chapter a bit!

Our little contingent managed to get together.

Today My World Was Rocked

Oh I needed today. Words have failed me when I’ve tried to describe what I experienced, but I’ll try to summarize.

This morning I attended a field session at the location of the former Aquarena Springs tourist attraction, which has been lovingly returned to a more natural state by Texas State University and is now the meadows Center for Water and the Environment. Before it was an attraction, it was a site of a gristmill. Before that, it was a sacred site for native people who believed they were born from the springs.

I’d met the descendants of this tribe at a conference years ago. They talked about the Sacred Springs and how it had magical qualities. That’s why I wanted to attend the session on Field Environmental Philosophy As An Approach Towards Mindfulness and Reconnection With Freshwater Ecosystems. That’s a mouthful.

Oh my goodness. The session, which was led by three philosophy professors, was exactly what I needed to put together the seemingly disparate pieces of my spiritual practice, personal philosophy, and scientific interests. It’s biocultural conservation. The techniques the presentation demonstrated show how you can integrate mindfulness and connection with nature and scientific analysis. Bingo. That’s my goal.

I got a bit overwhelmed just standing at the sacred site. It felt like one of “my” places. I was deeply comforted and quite moved. One of the professors noticed. I said I felt connection, like ley lines. He said that’s because many sensitive people say the same thing! Eureka. I found my Texas home spot at last. (I know of two others, one in Florida and one in Wales.)

I no longer wonder if I shouldn’t be identifying birds while doing my breathing exercises. I feel validated in my drive to perceive the world around me in all the modalities. It’s just a great feeling.

Anyway, we did an observation exercise then came back and talked about it. I think the philosophers were ticked that so many of us were blown away by what they were sharing with us. There were so many great pieces of feedback and questions. I have many reading resources to look up now. I’m stoked.

I enjoyed hearing the birds and looking at the beautiful plants on this site, too. The university is doing great work to preserve this area.

The rest of my day was full of fine conversations with new and old friends and even some rest. I met interesting people in the vendor area and learned from them. Fascinating stuff about night sky preservation, fireflies, raptors, and native seeds. Bonus was meeting a woman who’s just published a book on karst and caves in this area, another interest of mine!

The Texas Master Naturalist annual meeting kickoff was back at the springs. I enjoyed the glass-bottom boat tide very much. I’m glad they kept the boats from the tourist days. Here are some fish and turtle photos.

After the boat I went into the aquarium area in the building on site. They had examples of all the fish we saw in the river, plus the Texas River Cooter turtles. The garfish were so cool. Plus there was an eel. I love aquariums.

I came on back before the nothing began and joined my friend Mike for a drink. I wish we could see him more often. I caught him up with the rest of our chapter members and he caught me up with his naturalist and ethics work.

I still have time to blog for you! Enjoy this dump of more photos of my day at the aquatic center.

Working for a Good Cause and Making New Friends

Whew. I’m a tired gal. But it was fun getting that way and I was rewarded with a pleasant evening.

It’s time for the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting. So I drove to the Shield Ranch somewhere in Southwest Travis County or Hays County to start my activities. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but it looked like an interesting spot in the field session description.

It had an interesting stump that looks like an animal head.

When I got there (after having to go through rush hour in west Austin) I found that the session included doing some dirty work. And there I was in my white shirt. Silly me.

That’s me in the white shirt holding the seed sack.

But we intrepid volunteers all had a good time, I think. We prepared ground with topsoil and composted horse manure (much lifting, wheelbarrow wrangling, raking and mixing). I mostly threw native plant seeds appropriate to the part of the world where the ranch is on top of that mix. It sounds easy but that seed bucket was heavy. My left arm is telling me that, right now.

Seed buckets. There was also rye grass seed.

Once that was done, mulch was used to hide the seeds from birds. This was on the roadside, where plants have not been growing. It should be really nice if it ever rains the seeds in. We did well!

After the work, we ate our sack lunches in the impressive dining pavilion. It’s all solar powered and all the water is harvested rainwater. There’s no air conditioning, but it was perfectly pleasant inside. And at one end was a garage door of windows that could be cranked open, to be replaced by screens. Very clever.

I ate with a very nice older woman named Annie who was Texan in the best way, full of stories of her farm upbringing and funny relatives. I just had the nicest time talking to her.

Beautiful little bluestem prairie area as seen from the garage doors.

After we ate we went on tour of the site, which hosts camps for underprivileged young people, we took a hike along the creek then up the escarpment to see the meadows. There were many interesting plants, though they were pretty shriveled from the drought.

Oh, I meant to mention that a Master Naturalist chapter did the welcoming and very decorative plantings around the facility. It’s all native plants, teeming with life, but as attractive as a traditional landscape. They did great work. photos are above.

The drive to San Marcos, where the meeting is being held, was quite enjoyable, mostly on back roads. There were many huge ranches with ornate fencing and gates. Combined with their concrete driveways, you knew lots of money was being used for these spreads. Also there were numerous neighborhoods of very large homes. Land must be less expensive in the Buda area.

When the hour-long drive ended, I collapsed in my very comfy room. It’s a corner suite, which matters because I’m at one of those atrium hotels with all the echoes. Most suites have windows facing the hallway, which is loud. Mine looks out in the back (quiet) side of the hotel, where I can see how much the area has grown since I came here 15 years or so ago for a UU women’s conference. I feel old!

I did venture back out, because we get two free drinks per night! I’m so glad I did, because I ended up talking to the woman in front of me in the drinks line for a long time. We ended up having a great conversation about all sorts of things, even horses! She’s learning dressage. I couldn’t have had a nicer time.

Now I hope I can sleep. I didn’t last night! That was inconvenient insomnia. Tomorrow’s field session involves mindfulness and wetlands. Hmm. And later, glass-bottom boats at the beautiful former Aquarena Springs.

I Hope We Can Learn from History

What major historical events do you remember?

I’m not ancient, but I was born in scary times. I remember the nightmares I had after the “duck and cover” drills that would not have saved my elementary school friends from an atomic bomb.

I remember the President getting assassinated and watching his funeral on black-and-white television. I liked the white horses.

I remember Walter Cronkite solemnly reciting war casualties and my parents’ friends crying over their young sons forced to be in that war.

I remember some years of hope, when I thought people were getting less racist, women were getting the same rights as men, and my gay friends were able to come out of the closet.

I was on a plane when the 9/11 horrors happened.

I noticed when Vladimir Putin was elected and quickly became dictator. It reminded of a time before my birth when a candidate in Germany stirred up the disaffected and angry populace to win his race, then immediately put his opponents in concentration camps. Then came the immigrants, the gays, the non-Christians.

I hope I won’t remember a time when history repeats itself. Again. More scary times.

We’ll see. Two weeks from now a choice will be made. Pray for peace and that cool heads prevail.

A Risk I’m Wishing I Could Take

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

I did take a risk today, but I’ll get to that later. One I wish I could take is to go live somewhere I’d feel more comfortable. Every time I think about it I come back around to the sad truth that there is no Sunaland. Anywhere.

The coast of Sunaland, a mythical location. Photo from Pexels.

We keep thinking of different parts of the US. Last night it was somewhere in Central Pennsylvania. Earlier it was Wisconsin. Or whatever. Always too expensive, too far from medical facilities, blah blah.

Other countries? Sure. Ireland, Wales, or Sweden! But would they want us? They mainly want very wealthy people. I’m not sure we’re that. I want to live somewhere pretty rugged and in a small community. I’m just not brave enough to leave this place. I guess I’m settled where I am, even if I sometimes feel out of place.

Anyway, I was brave and took the risk of moving the horses to the field in front of the house. It still has some reasonable grass, which I thought they’d like.

Well, they liked the water trough we put in a lot. I’ve already had to refill it, due to splashing and slurping. Mabel and Drew like to splash.

There are LOTS of giant cocklebur plants in that field, and lots of woodland creatures to spook them. I hope they find the trees to be a good place to sleep. If they seem upset, I’ll put them back after my lesson tomorrow and give them a round bale of hay to eat.

It may just take a while to settle in. Horses aren’t fond of change.

Dusty, however, is quite fond of his own reflection.

Everyone here is tired because we had a guest last night, then people came to fix the bedroom slide in Seneca the motorhome, then much horse drama.

After all that, Lee and I voted, picking the perfect time when it wasn’t too crowded. I’m glad we got that done. It was fun to just skip uncontested contests where I dislike the candidate. By 2:30 over 300 people had voted in our town!

Goldie is pooped and so are the others! I must admit that I’m tired and peopled out myself!

Pride That’s Justified

What are you most proud of in your life?

I’m proud of two things in my life right now. One is my son, D. He struggled for a while in his 20s but is now doing work that’s meaningful and is an outlet for his artistic and spatial awareness talents. He did the repairs on his cabin after the severe wind event almost all by himself and it’s so rustic and cute.

And even though he’s my next-door neighbor now, he’s continuing his music career and learning so much about recording, too.

Old photo. He’s now drumming mostly. Public Instagram photo.

Hard work and determination got my boy to a good position in life! He even has a work truck and leads a crew.

Speaking of hard work and determination, the other thing I’m proud of is my relationship with Apache. The two of us have struggled and had so many ups and downs thanks to my insecurity, his nerves, and his health issues. But by gosh, we’ve gotten to where we’re reaching our potential.

We cleaned up well yesterday. I even had a waist.

I was feeling pretty down about horse stuff, mainly because Drew seems uncomfortable again and I just can’t get Apache to take his medication. But, I packed up and de-burred Apache, and off we went with Sara, Aragorn, and their New Zealand visitors.

Shiny, if a bit dusty, and smooth haired.

We ended up handling the show very well. In each of the three events, we did our best. Most important to me was that I wasn’t all nervous and remembered most of what I was supposed to do, even though I didn’t bend him well and there was some hind end issue I’ll have to ask Tarrin about.

After we finished the Trail portion of the show, where you go through obstacles, Tarrin left the judging booth and ran to me, yelling, “Sue Ann! Sue Ann!” I immediately thought I must have gotten disqualified or missed something. But no, she came to tell me I looked better than I ever had. That made me cry.

I nearly cried as I watched this woman and her horse competing in their Century: where the horse and riders’ ages combine to be 100. The beautiful mare is 23.

All in all it was a really pleasant and fun event. I don’t have any photos of me and Apache, but I can tell you he stepped up and did his best, even if he’s not been exercising much lately. I at least seem to have my stamina back, though I was totally zonked last night and went to bed at 9.

I got lots of pictures of Sara and Aragorn. He seemed out of sorts in Functionality but she kept her cool and managed him beautifully.

By the last event, Aragorn was back! He had the fastest overall time! Look at him kicking up dust.

All the competitors and their beautiful horses did great work. Everyone is improving and so supportive of each other. I learn so much watching the better riders.

I just want to show you how great the competitors looked. I was especially thrilled to see two other Paint horses and my favorite cute Appaloosa, who showed in hand.

I’m proud of all of us for trying to show. I’m so happy we found a supportive discipline with no negativity or mistreatment of horses.

Can I Be Lazy?

Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

Until my recent bout of Covid, I hadn’t had a lazy day in a long time. In recent years, I’ve just felt better if I was active. I just didn’t sit around a lot. when I was sick I genuinely had to just lay around. I hated it. But I did it.

It reminded me, though, that there is good in being still and not doing something for more than the daily meditation time. I’ve been trying to let myself have more time with no agenda and no “have to do” urges. I’m usually full of those.

Goldie says she just “has to” adorn the fake rug.

That’s the closest I get to lazy days. I am working to balance my daily agenda with more loose time hanging around with Lee or the horses. I think both man and beast enjoy me just being me. I do, too. And I think I feel rested!

Join us on this beach, Suna! (The pond is drying up.)

I think my productivity is better when I don’t stack activities on top of each other after all. I was getting pretty frenzied there for a while. I’m still getting in my steps and exercise, so I’m glad I’m feeling okay about not being so physically busy. It’s a more balanced approach.

Next: letting myself do nothing mentally when I’m not meditating. I’m always birding, knitting, reading, writing, editing, or something. Right now it’s helping me avoid intrusive thoughts about the near future. So I’ll keep my mind occupied until November.

PS: it finally cooled off! Today wasn’t hot!