Yeah, it’s sappy, and awe came in a close second, but I am positive that the positive emotion I feel most often is love. I’m always feeling love for something or someone. Not romantic hormonal love, but more the enduring emotional attachment kind of love.
Apache feels great love for his food dish, most days.
Today was farrier day, so I spent a long time with the horses again. I feel so much love for each of them (and Fifi), and it’s different for each, like a mother’s love for her children. Tarrin said she liked how I speak kindly to my horses…and I do get sorta blubbery around them. They may not understand my words, but they can discern my feelings.
Fiona wants you to know I laughed at her for stepping in her food bucket. She’d been picking it up and banging it against the gate like a prisoner asking out of jail.
Mabel got lots of love today, because she was the calmest she’s ever been getting her feet done, and she was able to stretch her legs out and put them on the stand, which means she looked pretty darned good for her by the time he was finished!
Brava!This is her bad hoof! Almost normal!A calm lady horse.
Of course, I don’t spend all my love on horses. I get all gooey over my favorite plants and birds, and of course, the dogs. They each hear how much I love them ALL the time. It just comes out. I even love Alfred at his most shedding time, which is now.
Clouded Skipper on a clump of Alfred hair that wafted across the lawn.
There’s just so much joy that the dogs bring! And they love us back, too.
Vlassic loves horse hoof trimmings.
And of course, I feel love for so many people, most of whom may not realize it. I feel all warm and fuzzy at friends’ Facebook posts and Instagrams. I just beam inside when listening to friends talk. They are all so special to me! What a sap.
Then there’s my spouse, who loves to take photos of me chewing. I love him anyway.
I know Lee loves me, because he drove me to the Austin airport today and dealt with the dreaded “Austin traffic.” But we got a cool upgraded room with a couch in it, so he’s happy (he sleeps better in couches or recliners than beds). The Hilton at the airport used to be the HQ building at Bergstrom Air Force Base, and is circular. I always enjoy staying here.
A nice place to stay before flying.
Bonus: I felt more love when I looked over at the bar after dinner and saw my former Austin hairdresser and his husband! That was such a happy moment. We got all caught up on each other’s lives and travels. It makes me feel like a native when I run into people like that!
Off to sleep so I can zip back to another time zone tomorrow! I’ll make sure to check for typos in the post title before publishing, unlike yesterday.
As my husband and goal-fixated friends know, I’ve never been one of those people who have goals for every day, week, month, quarter, year, and decade. These folks derive much benefit from analyzing their progress and figuring out their strategies. I used to really admire my friend Russell and his goal-setting (and achieving) prowess. Goals really motivate most people.
Lee had a goal to rid the pasture of giant bur plants. Much progress was made.
I just can’t do it. I’m too much of a “live in the moment” person who changes focus according to my needs. Goals just seem like tedious looming deadlines. I don’t know what I plan to do in the next decade. Not die?
Green Heron’s goal was to be a high wire acrobat. Win! I’d never seen one on an electric wire before!
Oh of course there are things I’d like to do, like visit natural wonders, become a better naturalist, finish my temperature blanket for this year, etc. I’m just not into exact dates and step-by-step plans. Life is not a race with some prize at the end if we make our goals. We don’t all have to set goals in the same way. That’s fine.
See more sunsets! A good goal.
I do admit to having short-term goals. One is to not fall off my horse. I succeeded today!
You haven’t fallen off me in years! But that one time was enough. Photo by Lee.
Poor Drew got spooked big time during my lesson (when he was already a little antsy). Tarrin’s golden baby horse got the zoomies when Drew was fixated on her lovely mother. I thought Drew was going to jump out of his skin as he bolted backwards. But I stayed on, and Tarrin grabbed him to help him calm down. He was hugging her with his neck and started licking her! Poor guy was scared. But I win! I held on. I’m glad I had on my sticky riding pants!
Only Drew photo I got today. He’s a little pudgy. (That’s my helmet on Apache’s saddle—he’s my beast of burden.)
This was another piece of evidence for something that had been on my mind. I’m wondering if he can hear well. We did a few informal tests this afternoon and…hmm. That could explain why he never looks up when I call him, and some of his reactions. We will have to investigate further. Did his mystery injury cause it? The big ole donkey hoof to the head he got?
It’s your fault, Fifi.
Luckily, Apache seems just fine. We are making lots of straightness progress, we are re-learning the side pass, and I’m getting better at riding with one hand on the reins. He is so much happier these days. But he does seem to have to pee every time we head back to the RV after our lessons! He’s working his back muscles, apparently, and that makes you have to go.
It’s a natural bodily function. I sit up to relieve pressure.
My goal for Apache was to be able to ride him calmly and enjoy it. We are getting there! See I had a goal!
What, like “very unique” or something? I find this question difficult, because it didn’t ask for a word that’s used too often, but rather for a word too many people use. In this case, I’m going to suggest “woke” as a word the wrong people are using for inappropriate reasons. People try to use this positive word as an insult and it doesn’t come across well outside their in-group.
Hi. I’m woke AF. Hmm, maybe too many people use “AF” after everything.
That’s not unique, of course. Humans have been changing words with positive connotations to negative ones for centuries. There are many articles on how neutral words have become negative words pertaining to women (like spinster, once a person who spun). As well, people have been misappropriating words from one group and using it in odd new ways for a long time, like white folks trying to be gangsta.
I do believe I’m not gangsta. This is fine. Other people can be if it’s fun for them.
If there’s one thing my misspent youth as a linguist taught me, though, is that languages constantly change, and that words mean what the speaker thinks they mean and the listener interprets them as. So who am I to say something is used “wrong?”
Each of us birds means “chirp” different.
I think I’m allowed to be triggered by some words being used in new ways. I don’t like “Nazi” being applied haphazardly. No, I’m not a grammar Nazi and never was a breastfeeding one either. That offends me. I was hoping our society was beyond that kind of thinking, though apparently it isn’t. Sigh.
I’ve got my raptor friends looking out for totalitarian wannabes.
Warning: if you call me woke I’m going to take it as a compliment. I’d rather be open to new ideas, kind, loving, and peaceful than angry and fearful of anyone different from myself.
On the home front the horses finally got to see the dentist today, after a series of mishaps on previously scheduled dates. I’m very pleased that the delay caused no issues and that everyone is doing well for their age and physiology.
Getting their teeth floated, then sleeping off the drugs.
Everyone was very well behaved, too. The best part was seeing the surprise on the dentist’s face when she saw Mabel. At first she thought I had a different horse! She kept exclaiming that Mabel now has a butt! That you can’t see her spine anymore! Her eyes are big and kind! Yep, she’s improved a lot. It feels so good to realize I’ve helped her become a beautiful, happy animal.
Are you wondering if my answer to this question will surprise you? Ha, the answer will be in the negative, because I’ve been harping on this topic since this blog began! Being outside in nature brings me peace, and if I’m unable to be surrounded by trees, flowers, insects, and birds, I start feeling anxious and uncomfortable.
Some nature is rather vibrant, but still good for the soul (Milam Wildscape scene)
I can easily meditate outside (unless there are flies, mosquitoes, or fire ants), which keeps me centered and able to enjoy fleeting moments of joy.
An Althea flower is perfect to fix your gaze on!
We experienced one of those moments this afternoon, by the way, which explains the title of this post. Lee and I were sitting by the pool as I recovered from overheating with the horses, yet again. He said, “Look over there!” Pointing to the pool house. Sure enough, a make and female bluebird were sitting on the porch posts.
This is from last week, but they do all look alike.
As we watched, the male flew right over to us and landed on a yucca flower stalk. He sang a few notes, showed us his beautiful feathers, then flew over to the garage, singing away.
Approximation. I don’t take my phone in the pool. Photo from Pexels.
Then the female came and stood at the other end of the pool. Then slowly and carefully she hopped closer and closer, then got a nice, long drink (we don’t have many chemicals in our pool). She was so graceful! At last, the rest of the gang flew up and they all left.
Our bird hopped all the way in, too (from Pexels)
Bluebirds have always been the dream bird for me, I guess because they didn’t live near me for most of my life. I envied people who got to see them. I remember where I was in Illinois when I saw one at last. I was thrilled.
I see them squabbling at Tarrin’s. Maybe someday here! (from Pexels).
They’ve been near the ranch since I’ve lived here, and I get to see lots of them at Tarrin’s, but this is the first year I’ve heard and seen them near our house. To have them coming near us was a great joy.
Adore me, Suna.
With all the woodpecker holes we’ve been getting built in the past few years, I’m not surprised that Eastern Bluebirds and Purple Martins have begun hanging around here. We have cavities for them to nest in. Thanks, woodpeckers!
You’re welcome!
And knowing that we’re supporting endangered birds on our property makes me so happy and peaceful. It’s like we’re contributing to the planet.
I truly admire teachers, and not just because I’ve taught adults most of my life. Teachers can be so important in the lives of their students. It’s not what they teach, necessarily, because public school teachers have so many weird-ass restrictions placed on them and so many useless tests to teach to.
I have more opinions, but I’ll just share a picture of our house from the road.
It’s the relationships teachers can build with students, the mentoring, and the important role they can play in helping students learn critical thinking skills (if allowed)—that’s why I admire teachers, especially high school teachers. Mine meant a lot to me.
I was admiring the moon when I saw a pretty Blue Grosbeak. No photos.
I’m proud my estranged son is a high school teacher. I know he’s making a difference in many lives, and is a good example of how not all Texans fit the stereotype. Students often don’t see adults unlike their own families outside of school.
Silver bluestem. My favorite.
I’d say more, but it would be my usual blather. You can just imagine it.
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.
Vantage point from new benches.
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.
Cute little thing
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!
It’s at that awkward in-between stage.
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 stationTurkey feather. Big ole TomPretty hens
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!
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.
What a smart watch.
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.
My bird buddies.
Tomorrow I’m doing all the chores, whether I feel better or not! Horses gotta eat, you know!
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.
Yay us. Image from Pexels.
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!
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.
Whee, this is 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.
Good morning. Thanks for the grass. Ok, you don’t have a halter, so I don’t have to play catch me. I wish Jim hadn’t started mowing. But we found long grass anyway. Ha!I’ll trim the driveway. No one mows the center strip. Freedom fun.
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.
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.
A meme I saw today.
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.
The Hermits' Rest 