The Hermits' Rest

Not a Sales Person, But

If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

I’d sell all my yarn stash, which would take quite a while, and offer knitting and crochet lessons. It would be a fun little pop-up store and I wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining inventory and paying sales taxes except once. I really have no interest in owning a shop. I enjoy interacting with people, organizing, and decorating, but not accounting.

Some nice, organized yarn. Photo from Pexels.

So, that’s not gonna happen but at least it gave me a topic, since much of my day was fairly full. At least I feel better. When I woke up I felt awful, but it must have been all those anti-shingles dispersing. I’m normal other than lingering arm soreness.

I managed a quick walk and saw this Spicebush Swallowtail.

It was very humid, so the heat felt hotter, and I decided to skip an activity in the blazing sun this morning. Instead, I went to the new bird station Master Naturalist project to take my August bird inventory there. At least I could do that in the shade.

I had a pleasant time and saw or heard 17 birds. There is a new water feature there, with water coming down a chain into a bird bath. On the chain I got to watch a juvenile Painted Bunting having a nice drink. I didn’t figure out what it was until I got home and looked it up.

There were also juvenile cardinals out and about, and one did some fine snacking right near me. Birds ignore you if you sit still long enough!

In fact, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were bold enough to sit on the tree branch closest to me as if to inquire whether I had any gnats for them. They are so pretty.

No gnatcatcher photos, but here are the cool furniture pieces that got donated.

I’m not going to go on and on, since I already wrote a blog post for the Master Naturalist blog this afternoon. But I enjoyed seeing so many birds flitting around, plus the chickens, guineas, and turkeys are fun, too.

Old live oak tree near the birding station

I’m glad I was feeling well enough to get horse supplies afterwards, since Dusty was out of his feed. Lifting 60-pound bags of food and salt got my weight-bearing exercise quota in, too. I’m sure the horses didn’t mind that I went swimming rather than riding, because I was I overheated!

Cattle were hot, too, but it didn’t phase the Great Blue Heron.

Dull but productive day, for sure, but since I’ll be traveling next Saturday, I enjoyed the chores and everyday duties! May tomorrow also be average!

Enjoy your weekend like this Eastern pond hawk.

Carry on My Wayward Phone

What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Duh! I’m a modern human! I must have my phone with me all the time! Sometimes I do t have it, but my watch is my backup phone. (My new watch tells me everything I cae about at a glance: time, date, weather, exercise, and heartbeat!) I’m sure the phone is a popular answer to this question.

The main reason I want the phone with me is because I’m always taking photos of plants, bugs, and birds. Or dogs, horses, and sunsets.

The other reason is that if I have a question, I can get it answered. Monopoly or not, I get a lot out of Google! When you’re curious, a search engine is a miracle product, as long as you maintain healthy skepticism.

So much knowledge, right there. But so far I haven’t needed AI to write anything.

I use the phone to text, message, and visit friends on social media, in addition to the occasional calls. I did a little of calling today when I found out the air conditioning was out on the Airbnb and I had to refund a guest and arrange for repairs.

I made AI draw this technician. Um. Great?

As for my day, it mostly involved vaccine side effects and feeling woozy. None of my intended errands got run, so tomorrow will be busy. But you have to listen to your body!

It clouded up and cooled off slightly by late afternoon so I was able to sit outside and enjoy the birds and dragonflies. To my delight, many hummingbirds and the bluebird family came to visit! The swimming pool is an important bird and insect watering hole.

Tomorrow I’m doing all the chores, whether I feel better or not! Horses gotta eat, you know!

My Goal? Validation of Dreams

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

What? I’ve been thinking of my answer all day. I came to realize that what I really want to bring to the world with this blog is to validate to readers that if I can do hard things, so can they.

That’s an odd answer, says horse from my calendar.

I’m just an average fairly intelligent person with anxiety and self esteem issues. I share my ups and downs as honestly as I can, to show others that they aren’t the only ones who struggle and to validate two things:

You aren’t alone with your self doubt, family issues, and fears
You have every right to celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small.

I talk about my interests in nature, riding horses, and crafts as examples of validation for myself that readers can take and apply to their own passions. And hey, if readers learn along with me, that’s a bonus!

I learned this is not a two-headed crow. It’s two crows.

I just hope that I’ve helped someone feel less weird, unsuccessful, or talentless. I’m never going to be a great equestrian performer and neither are my horses. But I’ve defined success as getting stronger mentally and physically and developing healthy relationships with my animal companions. If we set our goals right, it’s a lot easier to succeed. I hope I show that and that it helps someone.

I learned today that I get all swollen from the Shingrex vaccine.

Validating that you don’t have to be the best at something to enjoy it goes for my craft projects too. I was unhappy when I was trying to be a great knitter and keep up with my peers. Now that I’m just making things for fun, I’m doing better. And that’s great! Let’s all validate our achievements when we do as well as we can, not comparing ourselves to others.

The final way I hope I can validate readers’ feelings and accomplishments is showing that I never stop learning and am not ashamed to admit when I’m wrong or ignorant on a topic. How are you ever going to gain wisdom if you think you know everything already? The older I get, the less certain I am of anything. And that’s fine.

I wanted to also talk about validation from a personal perspective. I’ve come to the understanding that it’s more important to validate your own feelings, knowledge, and accomplishments. Like the self help folks say, you need to love yourself and talk kindly to yourself. That’s been my inner work for a long time.

But in addition, I need to stop feeling ashamed that external validation is still important to me. Yes, it’s a character “flaw” that can lead you down the road to codependency and unhealthy people pleasing behavior. I know that all too well since I repeatedly contorted myself into a sniveling whiner to try to get people I loved to love me back, get approval from teachers, or get praised by bosses. It wasn’t pretty.

I’m tested by this daily as I have to remind myself that I can’t make people like or appreciate me. Still, some kinds of external validation buoy me up, and that’s not horrible.

For example, that “award” I learned about yesterday (still not sure exactly what it is) made me feel good about my job, which isn’t often a source of pride (I do well; it’s just you aren’t supposed to praise contractors).

And another example of healthy external validation for me is how Tarrin talks to me during our lessons. She’s as good at motivating humans as she is with horses. She sees the skills I’m improving in and lets me know, like not getting upset when Drew got annoyed and lifted both front feet in the air. I’ve gotten so much calmer than I used to be! And it helps! She let me know I’m doing better at making corrections, too. It lets me see I AM improving, at my own pace and with my own goals.

Drew got a little testy about turning left, so Tarrin had to work it out.

So I’m allowing myself to appreciate kind words and encouragement from others, but not in an unhealthy way. I’m self validating!

Surprises, Weird Ones

The last couple of days have been surprising in both good and weird ways. I’m feeling pretty darned good at the end of it all. So, what’s been going on?

The gods and goddesses must be smiling at me.

The only sad weird thing didn’t happen to me, but I saw the evidence after my horse lesson. I feel bad for the woman it happened to, though. Apparently, one of Tarrin’s other students arrived for her lesson and went to her trailer to let her horse out. There she was very surprised to find a bird impaled on the door. What a shock? How does a bird fly that hard into the back of a trailer that’s moving forward? That was a weird surprise! Everyone thought the bird was a mockingbird, but detective Suna figured out it was a cuckoo.

Brown wing feathers and a striped tail. Very unfortunate cuckoo.

Better surprise was that I had so much trouble getting Apache to go into his pen after we got home last night that Mabel snuck out. I tried to entice her with sweet feed, but she wouldn’t go in, so then Dusty went out. I was so tired and being attacked by mosquitoes that I just let them all out to enjoy the much nicer grass in the exercise area. Lee and I managed to get our gate to shut, so in the end, it was surprisingly fun.

This morning when I went out to check on them, every single one of them, even Apache, came up to say hi and hang out with me. Drew even tried to go on my walk with me, but I did shut the gate. They all seem to like me.

Next happy surprises came midday, when I had lunch with my friends and we had so much fun that I had a hard time leaving. My segment of American society suddenly feels a little hope. It’s been so long that we are a bit giddy. I did have to leave to pick up my asthma inhaler (I only need it at times like this, when there are fires and Saharan dust in the air). There was a friendly pharmacy tech there, and she asked if I wanted my shingles vaccine first dose. I sure did! And there was no wait for the pharmacist to administer it, for free because I’m old! Surprise!

The pharmacist did it better than I do with Drew.

But wait, there’s more! I went back to work after the vaccination and got onto my regular monthly call with my contact at my actual employer, through which I’m contracted to Dell. I was surprised to see a second person was there, and they were all on camera. So I said hi and noticed they were really chipper. Finally they said they had good news. That surprised me. Apparently, they nominated me for some great contractor award and I won. That was very nice of them! You don’t get much recognition as a contractor, so that pleasant surprise was a great way to end my work day. I guess I’ll find out eventually what award I got.

It’s only been 31 years since my last award for technical writing (as evidenced by the dust on it—it was hiding in a box but Lee put it up).

Plus! At feeding time each horse and Fiona went right into their pens. I didn’t have to chase anyone. Whew.

So, see? Sometimes circumstances are really good! That’s life (and my arm feels fine, because I took ibuprofen.).

Milestone: it hit 100° here for the first time this year today. By this time last year we’d gone over 105° F.

Isn’t Almost Everything Non-binary?

You may have noticed that black-and-white thinking is taking over many areas of life from politics to sports to spirituality and more. I’m not naive enough to think that this is new. I think people draw great comfort from the notion that things are either one thing or the other: good versus evil, man versus woman, us versus them (a favorite theme of mine), gay versus straight, on versus off…you can think of your own examples, I’m sure. It makes decision-making much easier when there are only two very different options to choose from (as opposed to choosing paint colors from the giant swatch collection from the paint company–so hard.

A black and white world would be very different (thanks AI)

Simplicity is comforting, as is knowing in your own head that you are right and have made good choices. We’re all on Team Good and Team Us! No one wants to be on Team Evil or Team Them. Those are the “others” we don’t want to associate with. I get it. But. Too bad.

Us versus Them, even though we don’t know who the teams are.

I’m here to remind you that very few things are actually either/or. They’re more likely either or or or or or. This has been a passion of mine since I was very young. I didn’t even like the part of Genesis in the Bible where Yahweh divided everything into little binary bits. It’s not Night and Day, God! There’s twilight, dawn, dusk, the Golden Hour and many other parts of the daily cycle.

Once upon a time I was writing about linguistics and my job was to describe how some little “feeling” words at the ends of sentences in Japanese worked. I listened to people talk, I watched Japanese movies, I asked people who spoke Japanese what they thought. Then I tried to write it up. It was obvious to me that the little words went from expressing a soft, feminine touch to a hard masculine emphasis. The words weren’t divisible into two categories. It was a continuum or a scale. That didn’t jive with the currently popular theories of how language worked back in the olden days, so my analysis didn’t go over well. I was not happy to feel compelled to slam my little words into a theory that didn’t explain them.

Great depiction of how I used to feel. Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels.com

This experience attuned me to notice other parts of the world that were non-binary (long before I heard of nonbinary people). It helped that other people were noticing this, too. Pretty soon I heard that autism was on a spectrum, as were personality traits like psychopathy. By gosh, then sexual preferences turned out to be on a spectrum, which was a big aha moment for this woman who never felt particularly womanly. And this week the whole man versus woman spectrum has been explicated everywhere I look. That’s all good, of course. It’s just that the binary believers aren’t pleased by all this science hoo-ha.

It’s not just human traits. The more I read about biology I see that genus and species in many life forms isn’t as binary as taxonomists would with they were. I learned how hard it is to distinguish some birds and that sometimes species diverge and then re-converge again. The Earth herself doesn’t have as many set boundaries as people think. It’s not land and sea. There are marshes, glaciers, reefs, and such, with the edges changing over time.

Green or blue? If you read any of my reviews on books about colors, you’ll know that green and blue are the same color in some cultures (Japanese for example) and that before people realized blue existed, they said oceans were red. Not distinct colors. Nope.

The more I look around, the harder it becomes to find anything natural that’s really binary. I think working in a binary fashion may be one clue that something is made by humans, like computers, cars, political parties, religions, and the ilk. It’s all very confining.

Eek, it’s the Matrix. Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Some of these institutions really try to restrict us from being true to ourselves. For example, in the US the political system forces you to choose a party (I realize there are more than two). You must be Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, red or blue. But most people have their own ideas and opinions that fall somewhere in between or outside the limits of these labels. I don’t like this. I am a pacifist, but I still support law enforcement. I don’t like guns, but they have their place and wouldn’t take them all away. You can see, I’m somewhere in between, as are many people who aren’t among the substantial percentage of the population that prefers to draw comfort in black and white thinking.

Note that the US flag doesn’t belong to any party. Last I heard everyone who’s a US citizen is an American. Photo by Jessica Lewis ud83eudd8b thepaintedsquare on Pexels.com

I guess I’m trying to convey a message here. Please, if you are presented with a view of any issue that says there are only two options or choices, pause to think about it. Are there REALLY only two opposites, or are there actually many points on a continum, of options. We need to allow ourselves to see ambiguity and fluidity as natural and beautiful, since it turns out that’s how the natural world works. I find things more interesting and fun when I see all the possibilities, and I’m fine with not always knowing exactly where I fit in.

And nope, “the gays” do not own rainbows. We all get to love them. Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

People can change, too. Once you’ve made a choice or decision, you can make another one based on current information. I’m not the same me who made immature decisions in my twenties; I’m a different me with more experience, so my decisions may still be questionable, but they’ll be different, along some nonbinary continuum of growth.

Feel free to argue.

All the Happy

List 30 things that make you happy.

I have a serious topic I want to write about, but I’m still pondering. So let’s have fun and list happy-making things off the top of my head!

One. Blogging. It’s such a nice outlet to share and connect with the world

Two. Shiny things. Must have been a crow in a past life.

Three. Doing my nails. It’s a weird hobby for a sorta neutral person, but I’ve stuck with it 50 years now.

Four. Watching the dogs playing.

Five. Finding a new bird by sound or sight. Such fascinating creatures.

Six. Learning new horse skills. Especially with Apache, who enjoys it as much as I do.

Seven. Ice cream.

Eight. Driving my car. It’s so comfortable and Zoom.

That’s my car after it drove to Arizona.

Nine. Hiking. Or walking on trails looking for interesting plants, birds, mammals, insects, etc.

Ten. Knitting and Crochet. My hands love the familiar rhythms, and my eyes love the colors.

Eleven. Reading magazines. I like to have pictures to go with the words I’m reading. Plus I learn a lot from most of them, other than my guilty pleasure of People.

Looks like my cardigan. Actually I made this, too.

Twelve. Talking with friends (including Messenger). I get so happy just catching up, even when we discuss hard things. Of course, I’m awful at phone calls. So call me, Donita and Jan.

Thirteen. The way horses smell. So happy-making.

Fourteen. Sleeping in a new, clean bed. I think that’s why I enjoy traveling so much. Hotel and condo beds.

Condo bed in Colorado. I’ll be there soon.

Fifteen. Hearing positive political news. It’s so rare that I get giddy.

Sixteen. Babies. Even cranky ones. I miss them.

Seventeen. Singing harmony. I don’t get to do it anymore, since my voice broke, but I lapse into it occasionally. It’s so intimate.

Eighteen. Rain. It rained this morning and I was very happy until Penney erupted in fear. But rain is so welcome here.

Nineteen. The swimming pool. It’s hard not to be happy floating around or sitting with Lee watching the hummingbirds on the red yucca.

Twenty. Mountains. They fascinate me, I guess because I have mostly lived in flat places. I love the waterfalls, rocks, and forests.

Twenty-one. Flowers. All of them. What a cool way to reproduce! I get a little thrill when I spot a flower.

Twenty-two. Helping someone. I get so happy when I can make things easier for someone or do a favor.

Twenty-three. Chickens running. Just thinking about Bertie Lee and Buttercup running up to greet me brings a smile to my face. I shall get more chickens next month.

Twenty-four. Making cornbread oyster dressing. Reminds me there were good times in the past.

Twenty-five. Spending time with my son. He’s become such an interesting adult.

Twenty-six. Attending conferences. I like learning, meeting new people, connecting with friends, and hotel bars. It’s like going to college with no tests.

Twenty-seven. Riding in the motorhome with Lee. He loves driving and I love the scenery.

Twenty-eight. The moment when you get to the apex of the hill on 190 and see all of Cameron spread out in the distance. You can see the courthouse. Especially at night I feel a rush of happiness. See, I don’t dislike Cameron, Texas.

Twenty-nine. Art Galleries and Museums. It’s amazing what beauty people can create.

Thirty. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, especially the Chorale. I cry every time I hear it.

Whew. That was hard.

Listening for Joy

Describe one habit that brings you joy.

Thankfully, I have some good habits. But I’ve been cultivating one for the past year or so that has enhanced my life greatly and consistently brings me joy. It’s listening.

I’m not talking about listening in conversation (which I’m sometimes rather bad at—I’m working on it). I’ve been practicing listening to nature. I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s become increasingly valuable in my mindfulness practice.

Listening attentively takes your mind off other things. Just noticing sounds when you’re doing yoga breathing is nice for meditation.

I have good hearing, for which I’m very grateful. Now that I’ve been practicing using Merlin Bird ID so much, I can sit in my birding chair with my eyes closed and know what’s going on all around me. I can hear many birds the app can’t, which makes me very happy.

But spending so much time walking and standing in various spots around the ranch has helped me identify much more than bird calls. I can tell what’s flying by from wing flapping. Watch a Cardinal fly sometime: you’ll see a pattern. That pattern is easy to hear because they are the loudest flyers (second are house sparrows). Vulture wings are also easy to hear. I love that sound. And of course hummingbirds and mourning doves have distinctive wing sounds.

I found this hummingbird by sound this morning.

When I listen to birds, I hear other life forms. I can tell my favorite bees and bee flies from each other, and I know some of the frogs (bullfrog and cricket frog croaks are easiest). There are always cicadas and crickets in summer. I wish I had an app for those. And the grasshoppers that fly (only females) make loud noises, too.

Can you hear me chewing leaves? (spur-throated grasshopper)

Whoever said it’s quiet in the country has never been there. Especially when there are cows around. I can identify them chewing (as opposed to horses) and can tell whether I’m hearing them pee or poop. I could do without that.

A listening skill I finally have down is the squirrel. I’ve stopped thinking they are birds. When a squirrel and hawk got into an argument this afternoon, I didn’t try to figure out if it was a Cuckoo or Green Heron. It was a small triumph.

It occurred to me one day that the sounds people make are probably identified by animals. I’ve amused myself lately by not trying to parse the words I hear in restaurants or other busy places, and just hear the sounds people make as noises. I wonder if we’re as annoying as a flock of grackles?

Listening is an important skill to develop. I spent many years developing listening skills in music and languages. But the nature sounds bring me much joy. It’s like the whole world is communicating. Yes, the whole world IS communicating. That’s the Big Picture I need to remind myself about often.

Curiosity: The Secret to a Happy, Long Life

What are you curious about?

Now, here’s a question I can answer! I’m curious about everything. I probably could have gone to college my whole life getting degrees in different subjects. Since I couldn’t do that, I’ve tried to keep asking questions and trying to see how things work my whole life. And oh, how happy I am when I figure something out (examples to follow).

Dusty is **always** curious about what I’m doing. I couldn’t get a picture of all 4 horses lined up in their stall, because he had to come check me out. He’s so sweet and I can’t fault him for being curious!

It’s always seemed to me that people who are curious and want to expand their knowledge are happy. Closed-minded people seem either sad or grumpy. I don’t have scientific evidence for this, so maybe I should look that up…

There’s lots of evidence that lifelong learners stay sharper (on average) than people who are fine without getting new insights or ideas. To me these folks seem to live longer, but maybe not. In any case, curiosity makes any life feel rich and long.

Look! I was curious as to what this is. It’s a bluish-green cuckoo wasp. I found out it’s a parasite on mud dauber nests. Hmmm.

There are things I’m not all that curious about. For certain I don’t want to know what other people are thinking. Nope. I’ve tried, but I can’t get interested in learning war strategies, types of firearms, ways to cheat “the system,” or gambling. I’m not all that curious about how political systems work, but since Lee is, I’m learning about it anyway. It just soaks in.

Lee loves CNN. He took this awkward anchor person photo.

I like solving little local mysteries that my curiosity brings out. I gather my mental evidence and look for more. Like today, my hunch that there was a Green Heron nest in the pond behind the house was borne out. I finally saw the whole family, including squabbling adolescents. That was fun!

In Other News

I made more cardigan progress today. It fits! Now I’m working on the sleeves, which require a delicate calculation of how much of the main yarn color is left. The sleeves need to be even!

Yep, it’s bright. At least I smoked today.

And I have also finished updating the Sightings section on this blog website. I found it interesting that the numbers of plant and insect species are very close, over 350 each (I say from memory, since I’m not curious enough to check). I don’t think I’d ever have imagined I’d find that many if I hadn’t have been curious enough to start recording them.

I’m glad this week is over. There certainly have been lots of ups and downs in my personal stuff, my friends’ lives, the US, and the world. Maybe there can be a little break?

Crocheting a Distraction

Hello! I’m here, just without much to say. There’s so much going on around me, both good and challenging, that it’s hard to focus on a topic. Honestly, I want to meditate all day to get away from the competing distractions, but I know meditation shouldn’t be an escape. So, I’m crocheting.

I was trying to make this bright and sparkly project out of only yarn in my stash, but I didn’t have any solids in the right weight (oh, I do, but in the shipping container). When I found the purple gradient, I was thrilled, since it’s the same brand.

I tried it on this morning after I finished the bottom band and was happy to see it was the medium length I wanted.

Older person, rear view. It looks good other than lacking sleeves.

Today I got more than halfway through the collar band, so the sleeves will happen soon. It’s a yoked cardigan. I’ve knitted many but never crocheted one. I’m so impressed that I didn’t make it huge.

It’s good to have the crafts and the birds to distract me. There were lots of birds today, including the elusive Wild Turkey and Osprey. I didn’t see either but I heard them. I’d heard the Osprey arguing with a hawk earlier in the week. Of course, no photos of them, but the Cardinals and Mockingbirds will pose.

I’ve been letting the swimming pool distract me, too. It’s so nice after horse activity. I’m getting swimming muscles, I think. The Olympics are also great distractions. Just people who have incredible skills showing good sportsmanship. That’s encouraging.

Look at this interesting insect. I have no idea what it is, but look at that stinger!

What distracts you when the world threatens to overwhelm you?

Not Very Traditional

What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

It’s a slow news day here at the ranch, so I’ll answer this one. My parents didn’t have many traditions that I can think of, so it’s a little hard to come up with them.

Ah, Easter is a non-tradition for me. Aren’t we a happy 60s family?

I remember they always had a drink or two before dinner. So we always ate later than some of my friends. The drinks were usually vodka and grapefruit juice, but that changed later and Dad had scotch and Mom had morphine. Anyway, I don’t do that. I have wine occasionally before/during dinner and bourbon and an ice cube after. But not all that often.

I do like wine, just not being tipsy anymore (Pexel image)

My parents both thought smoking made them look cool. Dad did look distinguished with his pipe and Mom was elegant with her cigarettes until she wasn’t. I have memories of her vacuuming my room while smoking and leaving long ash caterpillars on the floor. I’d have to re-do it. Mom tried. She had an addiction issue. Watching her die was enough to make me never want to smoke anything, especially since I’d already had so much second-hand smoke that my lungs were weakened. So, not keeping that tradition.

Mom’s floating around up there giving me advice.

They did have a tradition I liked, which was walking the dog (Pumpkin, whom I’ve mentioned before) every night after dinner. Since they were already tipsy, it meant for fun neighbor conversations. I’d walk the dog every evening if I had fewer dogs and a sidewalk. But it was nice and got Mom out of the house while she was sick.

I’d go cuckoo without the dogs. This is an actual cuckoo I saw today.

Damn, that was a downer. I bet this question was supposed to be about holidays or something.

This cheers me up. Squash soup with garlic chives and bread. So good.

Oh! A tradition I wish I’d kept up was having a beautiful garden and propagating plants. Mom was great at hybridizing camellias and daylilies. She grew beautiful orchids in later years. Dad was a great garden designer and loved to keep his lawn and flower beds perfect. I never have been that good or patient with plants but I sure enjoyed watching Dad. He was a great edger.

I just look at plants in case there’s a cool insect on them. That’s a dusky-winged hoverfly.

I guess I sort of maintain the plant tradition with all my native plant observations and how hard I try to protect them. There, I kept one.

Mom was crafty like me. I’ve also kept that family tradition going. This is the border of my sweater. Meh. Maybe it will look better when it’s done.

By the way, new to the Hermits’ Rest website is a page listing all the fungi I’ve identified on iNat.