birding station – The Hermits' Rest

Good Things Balanced by a Passing

I fell asleep last night before I could blog anything. That’s fine, because yesterday I mostly recuperated from the camping trip. The highlight of that day was discovering that the trim on my birding station was completed! I was so relieved to see all the naked wood painted red AND the pile of leftover wood gone! I think they are going to paint the hardie plank too, but it looks fine as it is.

That’s a cute little hut, and I use it every day!

I also got a gift from Connie. I guess Darryl got her into reproductive mode. It’s weird to me that all the lady birds decided to resume laying around the solstice. They are supposed to start around the equinox. Perhaps the extra warm weather has fooled them. (ETA: I said this yesterday, too. I guess it excited me.)

This morning, before I took my walk, I helped Lee replenish the horses’ hay. The horses didn’t make it any easier. Drew was running around trying to bite everyone until Dusty finally kicked him with both rear hooves. Way to go, old man! And Spice politely stayed out of the way right until she really needed to move, so Lee ended up bonking her with the hay ring. She lived.

We’re all keyed up after Drew was biting everyone

So that’s life around here. I did want to note the passing of a woman who had a huge influence on my development as a human, a feminist, and a fiber artist: Barbara G. Walker. During my most confused period of life, my twenties, I discovered her collections of knitting stitches and poured myself into designing garments as an escape. She was an incredibly meticulous researcher (she also wrote about crystals and other topics).

Then one day I went to the bookstore in the University of Illinois campus to get another volume of her knitting. While there, I wandered over to the spirituality section, because I’d been wondering what a feminist religion would look like. I found The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, the result of her research into goddesses and other female-centered concepts. However, I didn’t realize she was the author until I got back to the student break room in the linguistics department and looked at the covers. I ran to find Georgia, my advisor and fellow knitting feminist to show her. I was so happy.

I read that entire book (probably when I should have been reading about pragmatics) every night before falling asleep, slowly but surely healing some of the wounds I felt from patriarchal religion. Walker sent me on my way to discovering Starhawk and other authors and helping me learn I wasn’t alone.

I’ll always be grateful to Barbara G. Walker. I still treasure her books, especially The Skeptical Feminist, which is out of print. Read more about it in this blog from a few years ago.

I’ve been reading tributes to her. I wasn’t the only one who had an epiphany when they realized she wrote both feminism and knitting. She lives on in our memories.

I Found Heaven

Oh, you’d suspect I found metaphorical heaven here on the ranch in the beautiful sunset light.

That is a nice thought! It was a beautiful day, and my sunset walk was pretty darned heavenly.

However, the Heaven I found was not for me. It was for Lucky here.

You see, I went to feed the chickens and noticed the feed bag was rather well chewed. So, I picked up the bag. I was not surprised to see that there were little creatures in my sealed food bin. At least four tiny mice running around on a layer of chicken feed. That could be Heaven for tiny rodents!

I had trouble getting mouse photos. I was kind of grossed out.

That’s when I saw that the mice weren’t alone. Lucky was in there with them. Now, being in a safe warm box full of tasty morsels is any rat snake’s idea of heaven! Lucky is young, but climbed well enough to get in!

Well. Yuck. So, I took out all the food the mice hadn’t gotten to yet. One big bag I took out and emptied onto the ground. That’s where Lucky was hiding. That’s when I picked her up and took her over by the hay bales and let her go (former caregiver for a rat snake, so I have the skills).

I was able to go back to my violated storage container and create an exit for the mice. If they are still there tomorrow I’ll eject them when I clean and disinfect my storage box. I sure hope it hasn’t developed a hole in it. I’m pretty sure all these creatures got in when I had the lid up.

I’m outa here. Thanks for the hay and food!

Anyway, this was all kinda icky. Heck, I was a suburban band mom not all that long ago. I’m not always the tough rancher gal I’d like to be. That’s why I went on that sunset walk. I needed to breathe fresh air.

Ah, a beautiful clasping coneflower that thinks it’s spring.

I did discover multiple spring flowers starting to grow. I assume the next freeze will slow them down, but right now it’s spring-like.

Ah, before I forget, I got my “furniture” set up in the birding station. Two low stools are a table and footrest. They were a pain to put together because the legs are slanted, so I had to smoosh them together to get the bottoms to fit into the tops. I just about didn’t have the arm strength. But I prevailed.

I also got another weatherproof storage box that was easier to put together because it was cheap plastic. I will not store mouse food in it, just my binoculars and cushion in case of rain. It also can serve as visitor seating. So far, the only visitor has been Harvey.

I need to figure out what to do with the leftover wood. I’m not sure if there’s a plan to use it.

Notice that the inside walls are also finished. This is one classy outdoor folly. My friend Tandy says it looks like the stand where Lucy in Charlie Brown comics used to dispense her mental health advice.

I need a sign that says, “The birder is in” perhaps.

Thinking of all of you, especially those dealing with health challenges.

Fancy Birding

When I got home from Blanco, my “birding station” was just about finished, other than some painting.

The good news is that the siding is close to the right color before painting.

It has a cute little metal roof and gets lovely morning sun this time of year, which is good because it’s been close to freezing the last couple of nights. The siding keeps the cold wind off my legs while the sun warms my top half.

My chair is in there. I ordered a little stool and side table for my coffee, notebook, and binoculars.

Next I need to measure the openings so I can order bamboo blinds to block the sun in summer and when sunset is trying to blast my eyes.

So far it hasn’t disturbed the wildlife. This beautiful moth visited yesterday.

I also enjoyed visits from a Viceroy and Bewick’s Wren.

Today’s visitor was larger. She was very curious about what the heck I was doing.

I’m looking forward to enjoying the winter sparrows and wrens from my station, especially once it’s a little warmer. Harris’s Sparrows arrived today, so the gang’s all here!

Outdoor Projects Moving Forward

I didn’t write last night because I was chatting with my family. This makes me think blogging is what I do when there’s no one to talk to. Perhaps two occasions of that happening in one week aren’t enough data for such a sad interpretation. It is not the case that I have so few people to talk to in real life that I chat with an unknown audience. I have both friends and readers, many of whom ARE friends or step-sisters.

The weather is probably making me weird(er) today. It kept acting like it wanted to rain, then just displaying attractive clouds to distract me from the projects I was planning to talk about.

Before the projects, I’ll share a story of mama cows who are brave. There was a new tan calf this morning and I saw the vultures heading over to the pond to bother the mom and baby. Vultures look beautiful in morning light with dark clouds behind them (last tree photo above was the setting). The mother cow was looking unhappy and let out a weird short moo.

In response I hear hooves. The new white calf is running toward the new family. That calf is quite the zippy little thing. Her mother was right behind, mooing loudly. Mama walked right up to the vultures, lowered her big bovine head, and shooed the birds away. So much flapping! After that, everyone settled down for peaceful nursing and grazing.

Okay, so I did leave the ranch in time to do some volunteering over at the Wildscape project with some of the Master Naturalist chapter. There was a large pile of dirt to spread over a weed barrier, and there was also some cleanup to do as the team gets ready to plant new pollinator-attracting plants for the H-E-B pollinator grant we got.

I was not very helpful, but I did take some unofficial photos of everyone working.

Then I ran off to the bird sanctuary, which is hanging in there without our help. I wandered off to the area where prairie is being restored and found myself all alone and unable to see signs of humanity other than fences. That was good energy for the new year (Samhain and Día de Los Muertes).

I did go back and interact with people, plus get to connect with my friends Ann and Donna, who have been dealing with health issues that annoy them.

I’m glad I got to go help a little, even though it meant I missed a funeral. Lee was able to attend and convey my condolences, though. I always feel a lot of sympathy for spouses who are left alone after many years. I’m glad our friend who lost his wife has a large supportive family.

When I got home from my errands, I got to watch more work being done on my birding station. They had to go back for more wood again—I think the design has been refined. I was told the project just eats wood. Anyway, it now has siding along the bottom, so there’s just top and roof left, I think.

Exciting stuff, huh.

Working on Things?

What have you been working on?

I’ve been slacking on my main project, the temperature blanket. I just have to buckle down and sew September onto the main blanket and crochet more black squares. Then I can enjoy October (hoping it cools off someday).

Poorly arranged photo of September. Hot colors.

This doesn’t mean work isn’t being done around the Hermits’ Rest. I was delighted to notice a lot of materials in our back yard when I arrived home from College Station. I also noticed the horses had more hay, so someone or someones had been busy this weekend!

Yes! My concrete bird-watching pad is becoming a birding station. It’s going to be quite a little gem. Kathleen has been painting trim like she’s driven, and her brother and spouse are building the structure.

I’ll have the shade I need in summer and protection from wind in winter. I look forward to trying it out!

I was pretty darned tired today from all that activity at the Texas Master Naturalist annual meeting. So I mostly napped and tried to add more photos before the Texas Pollinator Week ends. I did find a few interesting things, including katydids that I learned about this week.

It’s good to be home and back working on my usual projects, iNaturalist, Merlin Bird ID (got a Great Horned Owl!), crochet, and feeding animals. I fed horses and did not get injured. They’re calmer with their different bale of hay. That’s good, because half my face is green from bruising fun.