The Hermits' Rest

Animal Care Is a Crazy Business

Come up with a crazy business idea.

It would be crazy, but good, if there were a way to make money caring for your own animals. But no, instead they cost money. But I don’t begrudge the professionals who help me care for my animal buddies the major bucks I pay them. After all, it improves all of our qualities of life!

I completely turned around the blog prompt again. Jackie, I hope that gave you a chuckle.

This topic is on my mind for a couple of reasons. First, it was horsie spa day again, as Jackie came to do bodywork on Drew and Apache. Drew went first, since Apache ran off when I first approached him with a halter. I guess he’s not THAT lame.

Jackie found a couple of things that might be contributing to his dislike of bending, including something on his hoof I hadn’t noticed before. He visibly improved in his shoulder after she worked on him. It’s so cool what she can do!

Apache did a little of yawning and releasing.

Apache really benefited from all the work he got, as you can see. He was in pretty good shape other than the abscess, which agrees with my assessment.

His confirmation was looking so good that I asked Jackie to hold him for a picture. Even in his winter coat, he looks good.

I truly appreciate all Jackie can do. She is so gentle and soft with the horses but she gets them all stretched out!

The other animal care event happened to my dear Carlton. He’d had a “thing” that looked like a little pink nub on his back haunch. Dr Amy had said to just watch it, which we did. Last week he started messing with it and made it bleed, so he went in to have it looked at this afternoon.

In this picture from January it’s a tiny dot.

I was working so I couldn’t go, but I hear he didn’t get out of the truck. Dr Amy managed to take a dime-sized tumor out and sent it off for analysis. Let’s hope it’s all okay.

He has internal stitches and external staples. I bet it heals very nicely – or he will have a cool scar.

He’s been under good care and the watchful eye of Nurse Goldie. I knew he’d be in good hands (or paws) while I was at the Master Naturalist meeting, though I was a bit out of sorts there for a while.

When Goldie went into the bedroom after she ate, Carlton turned to Lee. Everybody took care of him.

He’s been very expensive for a pound puppy, but the love he gives us makes it all worthwhile. I’m so glad we have our dog pack and horse herd.

My Attachment to Objects Started Early

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

I’ll answer this question about the first and second items I became attached to as a baby. I was one of those babies who had to have their beloved object with them at all times. I guess my attachment issues started early? Anyway, here’s me as a round baby with Hee Haw, whom I may have mentioned before.

I don’t think I owned clothing as a baby.

Hee Haw was a stuffed giraffe. I thought it was a horse. Mom told me horses said “Hee Haw” so there you go. I know Mom knew horses. But she liked what donkeys say better.

I’m told putting this toy in the laundry traumatized me, as did the time I dropped it in a store. Luckily it was found. By the time Hee Haw disintegrated I’d moved on to my next and final security objective, a literal security blanket.

I’m sure I have photos of Lovin’ Blanket, or LB as Mom called it, but none scanned. It originally was a quilted satin layette blanket with a lovely binding that Granny Kendall gave me. I held it as I went to sleep each night.

Like, I did that a long time. By the time I was in high school all the quilted satin was gone, and it was just an edge. It was all knotted up, and I draped it over my bedpost. It stayed there through college. I guess Dad gave it a dignified farewell when he moved to North Carolina after Mom died.

There. I got that tired old story out of my system.

Imagine dozens of white-crowned sparrows here.

I don’t have any exciting birds for today, so I’ll give you some pictures of my current fuzzy security item. Sara and I both agree that Apache has the greatest neck for hugging. He makes everything all better.

He is still a bit lame from the abscess. I keep treating him. Here is his bad hoof. Send healing thoughts!

There is redness but the vertical things are grass shadows.

You Mean I Have to Write a Mission Statement?

What is your mission?

Do I also have to have a vision? Argh. I’ve written so many mission and vision statements for institutions and organizations. I’d prefer not to do that again, thanks.

Mission statements have to have bullet points and be active! (From what I vaguely remember.) So:

Suna’s Mission is to:

Respect the Earth, yourself, and others
Be mindful
Maintain healthy boundaries
Be kind
Never stop learning

Today I spent some time learning about using my legs better on my beautiful young horse, Droodles (Drew). That fulfilled my mission of learning, respecting myself, and treating the animals in my care kindly, but with boundaries. And when riding a horse, you need to stay in the moment and be mindful. I guess that mission statement works.

He was ready to GO this afternoon! Good thing, because we got lots of exercise.

Drew’s “Christmas” present arrived so he got to wear his new halter and lead rope today. He’s looking good! Sometimes I still can’t believe I have a chance to be a part of my fantastic horses’ lives.

Apache is still a little lame, but getting around okay. I still can’t find where the abscess is, but I’m hoping he’s better soon. Finding that thing is my mission for him! He got a cinnamon colored halter and I hope to try it out tomorrow when I check him out.

Daily Bird

It was extra windy and pretty cold today, but I did my bird watching like a good scientist. The best thing I saw was the first thing, though. I got to enjoy watching the great blue heron chow down on a fish. it usually doesn’t come this close.

Later, after I checked the rain gauge, I saw it catch another one and I guess wrestle it to the ground. It kept poking at it. Maybe it was a crawfish.

Can We Live Long and Prosper?

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

Today’s question has been on my mind lately since there have been a lot of deaths in my circle, and I’ve been a close observer of the stress, pain, and hard decisions loved ones have to go through.

One of our blog family lost her husband yesterday, which hits hard. But I’m glad she has the support of many close friends who’ve gone through this before, and she has supportive family. Sometimes, when no one you know has been through such a loss, you can feel so alone and lost, and it hits you so hard.

So, do we want to live very long lives? No matter when we pass away, we will leave sad people behind to treasure memories. I wish I had more of them with my mom, who died when I was 26. I coped poorly but was glad she was out of her mental and physical pain.

As long as I’m in reasonable health, can enjoy nature and my community, and am not a burden to others, I’d prefer to live a long life. I’m just curious about how we humans are going to handle things in the coming 30 or 40 years. And I’d love to continue contributing to society and becoming more wise.

Yet, if I were chronically ill with constant pain or costing my family so much that I was a financial burden, I’d have no problems with letting go. It would be interesting to see what’s next for the energy that brings me life.

I can honestly say that I empathize with anyone who decides they are “done” and don’t keep pushing forward in old age, and I can see not wanting to give up. And I have seen for myself how quickly you can go from fighting to dignified surrender when the time comes.

This made no sense, I’m afraid, but it helped me to write it. I do want to live long and prosper, though!

Love to all of you who are struggling. I am here for you if you need me.

I Could Turn Left Rather Than Right

What could you do differently?

I think I already answered a version of this question so I’m going in a different direction with it. Ha ha. Direction. I mean, there’s a sh** ton I could do differently, and I’ve written about that enough.

Instead, let’s take a walk, but differently. Today I turned left rather than right when I left our driveway on my daily nature walk. Whoa.

I’d been wanting to walk the other way down our road past our property line for a while, because there are some empty fields and mottes of trees where I’ve heard interesting birds while I was busy doing horse control at Sara’s place.

So, off I went. First I had to enjoy the horses, who were lounging around after playing in the burs (mostly Drew). They’re so cute when they lie down. I do wish they then wouldn’t grind mud into their coats, but they ARE horses.

As for birds, I was glad I brought my binoculars, because I got to get a good look at our resident American Kestrel and see it fly with the sun shining through its feathers.

The sun was so bright today that things were hard to see, but I was rewarded by seeing sun dogs in the clouds on either side of it for a while. Perfect cloud placement.

I saw a lot of woodpeckers, vultures, hawks, and caracaras. I also noticed that all the doves I saw were Eurasian Collared Doves, not the Mourning Doves I see at my house right down the road. Binoculars helped with that.

I heard both Eastern and Western Meadowlarks, which is cool, but I didn’t see anything new other than a White-breasted Nuthatch. I thought I’d see. One before, but I guess not.

I’m glad I took the walk in this direction, because I got to visit with Sara and look at her permaculture garden progress. Of course, for me the highlight was getting to visit with Jhayati, who is 8 months old now. She’s a beautiful filly and has such a striking face. I sure look forward to watching her grow.

After I saw her, I saw one more mockingbird then no more birds at all. Do they have clocks? They shut up at 11am.

Luckily there was still something interesting to see. I saw what looked like eggs on the ground where hay bales recently were. It was the eruption of the most cool mushroom we have here, the Lizard’s Claw Stinkhorn Lysurus cruciatus.

Interesting note: I posted photos of this on The Hermits’ Rest Facebook page, which is public, and suddenly weird replies from so-called people trying to promote psychedelic mushrooms popped up, repeatedly. Sigh. Lots to block. This mushroom just stinks. I didn’t see anything about it being psychedelic, but I’m now glad I didn’t lick it.

Penney says she’d lick it for me.

What’s the Preferred Beverage of A**holes?

Wait. How do you define a**hole, Suna? Good question, Imaginary Reader!

I define it as someone who can’t wait to get home, where surely there’s a rubbish receptacle, to dispose of beverage containers, instead preferring to toss those containers gaily out of the window of their pickup truck along rural roads.

I wish Red Bull had given this can wings and flown it back in the vehicle.

I’m sure they think the cattle and horses will enjoy stomping on their cans and bottles, and the folks who mow the roadside (often their neighbors) don’t mind damage to their mower blades. No, no. I doubt there’s much thinking involved.

Heck, no one wants to inconvenience a rural jerk. It’s good exercise going down the road picking that stuff up. I should be grateful. But I’m not.

Mmm. Mow this and excellent sharp edges will magically appear.

In the last few weeks I’ve seen so many cans and bottles that I decided to document what my thoughtless neighbors deposited along Milam County Road 140 near Walkers Creek.

I can say that liquor is favored over water, energy drinks, or coffee, the other beverages I found. Oddly, there was only one soda can. Pibb.

There were two miniature Fireball bottles, but everything else was beer.

I’d have been more impressed by Hot Damn.

And I’m obligated to share that the most favorite beer of a**holes who are driving down my road with open containers of liquor is…

Congratulations to the folks at Budweiser! You encourage dangerous and thoughtless behavior in our area more than any other company! And congratulations to the runner up, Natural Light.

I’m glad the drinking and driving crowd are watching their weight. Not really.

The thing is that people drive down these roads hauling children, valuable livestock, and expensive farm equipment. The roads are narrow, poorly lit, and full of wildlife (a beautiful coyote crossed the road in front of us yesterday). It’s hard enough to drive safely sober. And that’s why I call the people who litter with their liquor containers bad names.

Now, I just posted that we should love our neighbors, with no exceptions. It’s true. I care about everyone out here and want them alive and their families safe. I don’t want to read their obituaries.

Daily Bird

There were a lot to choose from today, because I went up to the cemetery and back. I know I’ve probably chosen these before, but the red-shouldered hawks I saw up close made me very happy.

I also enjoyed a tree full of vultures drying off, a great egret with a duck, some bluebirds, and lots of sparrows and pipits.

I watched a downy woodpecker for a long time and saw an owl fly into a tree, but I couldn’t even get one of my blurry photos of them.

Instead, here’s Droodles looking majestic.

The birds made me feel better about all the litter. I’ll bring a trash bag one day next week.

This Is My Billboard

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

Love your neighbor.
No exceptions.
Suna

That’s my message. Maybe it’s a good one to counter the effects of today being Insurrection Day, the day I realized the country where I live is not going to last much longer.

But live in the moment. And love your neighbor anyway.

Thinking about…Right Now

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

This is another trick question. I’m doing my best to stop myself if I start dwelling on the past (except good memories!). And I don’t think it’s healthy to do what I call pre-worrying about what might happen if circumstances go in ways we would like to avoid. That leads people like me to worse anxiety or even ulcers.

This chain got up on the gate thanks to worrying about future dog escapes. The big dogs could climb it.

I think one of the most helpful things I’ve learned from studying Buddhism is the idea of living in the moment. The more I do this, the more content I am in my life and the more joy I can find.

A part of the past I do like to think about is when this cute kitchen was built. We want to preserve it in our renovation. Retro chic.

No one can prevent thinking about the past and future all the time. What I try to do is see what can be learned from past events, and I try to figure out what I can control or affect positively in the future. I learned that from my spouse’s study of Stoicism. It’s made a huge difference for both of us.

Daily Birds

Today was wet and chilly. In the morning there were mostly the usual birds. But it was so quiet that I could hear wing flaps from vultures flying over. Merlin identified three birds that were surprising because we aren’t in their range: Swainson’s thrush, Black-capped chickadee, and Western wood pewee. Maybe the storms brought them over. Or maybe there was a software glitch. The chickadees look really similar but have different calls, so you’d think that would be right. It’s a mystery.

I turned the app on in the late afternoon to see if there were any different birds, and sure enough, there were two ducks, the common mallard and blue-winged teal. I’m hearing lots more ducks and geese this year!

A Gift of Mutual Acceptance

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

The gift I want most in the world would be to repair my relationship with my older son and come to some kind of mutual acceptance of each other, just as we are. Understanding of perceived mistakes or failings on each of our parts is something we could do. I’d be willing to try. Anyone willing to help bring us back together would receive my eternal gratitude.

Foggy morning leads to melancholic musings

Well, that’s not something I foresee happening after five years. So I’ll add that the greatest gifts I do receive are friendship and acceptance. I think we all would like to feel accepted and like we fit in. I treasure my community of kind and open hearted friends who accept each other, warts and all.

Online friends count, too. So many of us would feel very isolated if it weren’t for our friends who are connected on social media, on video chats, and in blogs. Social media is NOT all bad.

Daily Bird

Well, there weren’t many birds out today, because it was so foggy and cold.

The highlight today was the reappearance of one of my favorites, the barred owl. I’ve read that barred owls and great horned owls don’t like to live together, so I was happy to hear one this morning. Hooray!

Alma Mater Times Two

What colleges have you attended?

Well, that’s a question with a lot of assumptions behind it. Who says all bloggers go to college? I’d have preferred something like, “Where did you get your education?” (From where?) I realize there are people would give flippant answers, like “the school of hard knocks,” but you’d also get interesting insights into folks with non-traditional paths.

I was VERY traditional. After four years of attending a large high school in suburban Ft Lauderdale, Florida (unfortunately named Plantation High School), I spent four years at a large state university. The years at the University of Florida had a lot of good parts. I learned a lot, screwed up my personal life irreparably, and thoroughly enjoyed living in my home town again. My studies focused on linguistics, Japanese, and cinema studies (my boyfriend’s major). I’m extremely grateful to the National Merit Scholarship system, which allowed me to attend college even though my family was not well off and my mother had many medical bills.

See the bright spot under the sun? That’s the bit of flooding we got last night. It was a good rain.

I then went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for graduate school. Fun fact: both the schools I attended have orange and blue as their school colors. At least gators add green to the mix. UI are the Fighting Illini, which I was shocked to discover pronounced the last two vowels like “eye,” not “ee.”

There I studied pragmatics, syntax, and semantics. I learned to write well and to teach adults. I loved teaching. Academic writing, not so much. My topic got really boring, which is why I’m not a professor right now.

My favorite thing on campus was the beautiful statue of Alma Mater welcoming students and graduates, by Lorado Taft. It was always a happy sight.

If you’re still awake, I can give you my highlights of the day. First, I finished my giant three-part 2023 temperature blanket.

The last square is a handy key to the colors. I included the white, silver and purple that would have indicated 0° to 25° even though it never got that cold. Maybe this year! Or not! I could do without the Polar Vortex they keep threatening us with.

I’ll write up an official summary once I figure out how to get a photo of the whole thing.

Daily Birds

Second, two birds made me happy today. One was the first bird Merlin heard, a yellow-bellied sapsucker. I think I’ve now recorded all the woodpeckers that live here.

When I lived in Illinois, we had a sweet gum tree in our back yard. Every year one of these little guys would come and drill a new row of holes in that tree. It was so much fun to watch it working away, and the holes were a wonderful remembrance.

The other bird that brought joy today has already been the Daily Bird, but I was excited to actually see the great horned owl today. Yes, that blob in the photograph was hooting.

I also enjoyed my sparrow buddies a lot. The Harris’s sparrows were singing and playing this afternoon. I hadn’t heard them in a few days. They fed in the trees next to me for a while, so I got good views, though obscured by branches. Here are some photos of them, the other sparrows, and cardinals in the brush and trees. Yes, it’s a brown world right now, but I like brown.