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.
The Hermits' Rest 