dailyprompt – Page 10 – The Hermits' Rest

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?

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.

A Typical Day, with Science!

Was today typical?

Yes, today was a normal Monday, for the most part. Wake up, coffee, bullet journal (I made a page with mostly pink birds), do some work, take my morning walk, work more, meet with friends via Zoom for lunch, work, exercise and feed horses, swim, cook dinner (including delicious squash Sara gave me), crochet, TV, bed/blog.

There were two exceptions to the typical day. I had no pick up a prescription and ended up having a long conversation with the pharmacist, who is a really great person who cares so much about this community. I encouraged her to make her life less stressful like I’ve been trying to do. It was a good talk.

I had another good talk when I ran back into town to pick my son’s repaired work truck up from the shop. I was enjoying talking to him and his partner so much I nearly missed the repair shop. They’re very cool people, and it’s great having them nearby!

This is the only photo I took today. Not much going on.

Any day I get to talk to people I care about is a good day. And if I have time to cook, that’s a bonus! It may be boring, but having the energy to make a turkey breast, cucumber salad, and giant sweet squash was a treat for me.

But wait! I promised science in the blog post title! That’s because I’ve been working on the scientific parts of the blog website.

First thing. Since I have been tracking the birds I see every month, I decided to add them on the bird sightings page. I even have them as fly-out menus (ooh, work that WordPress). I also made myself use Excel to filter my results. I am not too fond of Excel.

Second thing. When I started this blog I was trying to count how many birds, plants, mammals, etc. I wasn’t keeping it up very well, then I realized I have a list of all these things already. I have an iNaturalist project just for observations on our property and the part we share (it’s called Hermits’ Rest Ranch Flora and Fauna, but I can’t link to it). All I need to do is export them!

So that’s what I’m doing. I have lists of all birds, reptiles, amphibians, and arachnids I’ve seen since I started using iNat. I’m dreading plants and insects, but I’ll get it done. Mammals won’t be too bad, nor will fungi. Find them under Sightings on the blog. I’m still cleaning things up, but I’ll get there.

So soon there will be useful nature information here in addition to cute animal stories and painful tales of attempted self improvement!

Crafty Gal

How would you describe yourself to someone?

Every time I try to honestly describe myself people tell me I’m wrong. But I’m telling you how I’d describe myself, okay?

This is me in black and white, to emphasize that when I was young people still used black and white film all the time.

First, I’m crafty. I like to create pretty things, though I’m more into process than product. I rarely wear things I make, with some exceptions. Still, I’m always working on projects, like my temperature blankets.

This doesn’t show the cool spell of the past week.

A lot of people do a craft project during the Olympics. I didn’t intend to do one, but a friend crocheted something I thought was cute, so I picked up some leftover Mandala yarn and started this Granny Pop cardigan. You can find it on Ravelry or search for it.

It will get a band around the front and neck, plus sleeves. First I finish the body!

Back to my self description. Here is how I’d do it.

I’m very intelligent, with some gaps in knowledge even though I’ve had extensive humanities education.
I’m sensitive and intuitive, and overly empathic at times. This doesn’t lead to popularity.
I offend people easily. What I think is funny sometimes isn’t.
I also help people often and am told I’m kind.
I’m conflict avoidant. Family of origin issues.
Though I’m an introvert, I enjoy speaking in public and used to like to sing in public when my voice worked. I find teaching and training fun, but tiring.
I’m stronger both physically and mentally than I’ve ever been.
I am fairly fit because I like exercise when I’m having fun (not big on gym workouts or running).
Physically I’m a short woman with the build of a taller woman. I’m medium in weight, and long waisted.
I’m average looking with light brown eyes and fine hair that I’m letting go gray.
I’m a cisgender -heterosexual woman with She/her pronouns.
Politically I’m progressive/liberal but practical. I can think for myself and evaluate situations independent of what my social group says.
Religiously, I’m not fond of organized religion not one little bit, and that includes ones I’ve used to center my own spiritual life around. I’m mostly drawn to the teachings of the Buddha, Starhawk (she’s a neopagan), Native American teachings, and Jesus. I’m a pacifist, which makes me a big target I guess. I have no expectations that anyone else follow my path.
I love nature and the earth. It’s all fascinating. That includes my favorites, humans, horses, dogs, and birds.
What I know of human history saddens me. People are very cruel and people with power are so easily corrupted.

That was all rather unorganized. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t describe myself as a good writer or more accurately, a good editor. But it’s what they pay me to do!

This made me laugh today. I saw a stump and branch that I thought looked like a deer. Then I realized there was a young buck next to it.

The Freedom to Flee

If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go?

Honestly, I have no idea where I’d go if I won two free plane tickets. I’d probably be pragmatic and use it to fly to Hilton Head in November, first class.

This is what you get when you ask AI to make a picture of plane tickets to Hilton Head. That gave me a laugh.

Also, honestly, today I got so frustrated with my moods, my isolation (sometimes a hermit doesn’t feel so hermit-like and needs someone), and my lack of options that I seriously considered booking a hotel room in Austin and hiding there all weekend watching the Olympics.

I got over myself and decided not to waste my Hilton Honors points on that. Better to stay where I am and deal with things. And I did. So there. I’m still a little short-tempered, which is how I get when the anxiety attacks attack.

These are not the kind of mushrooms that help with PTSD, but we have a lot of them after all the rain.

And thanks to making good decisions, I got to experience the relief of getting a new ($$$) swimming pool pump. Yes, the original one in our pool has already kicked the bucket. It was making so much noise that it was no fun sitting outside in the nice weather and I couldn’t hear birds very well.

Lee and I got to sit by the pool and enjoy the silence this evening. That was healing silence. Maybe knowing I am free to flee if I need to makes me happy to just stay where I am.

Bee happy! Finally I got a GOOD bumblebee in a morning glory!

Tomorrow, gotta move some hay I didn’t move quickly enough. Then I’ll need to dry it out before storing it! Horses will enjoy this delicious hay grown right next door!

Tricky Health and Well Being Strategies

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

I’ll tell you about one health and well-being strategy I use: if my day was too draining to blog about, I’ll put off answering the prompt. So, I started this yesterday and stopped. I realized I was having anxiety issues big time.

I don’t think I realized it as the work day was going on, but when I stopped working, I got those familiar chest pains that usually don’t happen anymore thanks to my daily medication. It’s some kind of PTSD-like response to my day. My boss was laid off and I was the last to know, thanks to Microsoft Teams suddenly insisting on my password that I forgot. That kind of stuff happens in large corporations of course. I’ve been through it with Lee, at the same company.

But my “stress memory” didn’t handle it as well as my intellectual brain did. I went right back to when I was at my previous employer and the boss I considered a mentor and friend got laid off (victim of a power struggle). I’d really liked my job there, for the most part, but things immediately went downhill until I realized I, too, was in the middle of a power struggle I could not win.

My nice job became prickly, just like these beautiful flowers will become those giant burs.

The last straw was when they made someone who worked for me my boss, and a week after telling me I was the strongest member of the team, he turned around and gave me one of “those” little chats about what a poor worker I was. I was so confused I kept asking, “What?” The very lucky thing was that I’d been getting all sorts of calls and emails about another position doing the parts of my job I really liked without the management politics. I took it. It’s a great job.

Happy worker, generated by AI – it is not me

And here I am having chest pains again. Now, I know that my position for next year has passed all the approvals needed, and I’ll get to work only 32 hours, which I find great. More time for camping and horses! But, not knowing where our team is going and all that would make anyone a little uncomfortable. I need to just take it day by day and be positive.

Could you tell my emotions to pay attention to my logical side? I guess that’s really my job. And that’s one thing I do to keep my well-being under control. I keep telling myself everything is OK until I believe it. It’s worked for eliminating negative self-talk, so maybe it will work with getting triggered when a bad experience could be construed to be happening again.

I need a new perspective, like this picture of the front pond from the side I usually don’t see.

At least maintaining my health is easier. I now exercise enough because it’s become a habit (hooray for my Apple Watch). I can’t believe it, but I feel bad if I’m not active. Needing to care for the animals sorta forces me to burn some calories, and the horse lessons are good for both my body and my mind. I’m really feeling good about all that!

I comfort her; she comforts me. It all works out.
(It thundered again today, so Goldie begged me to go upstairs and hang out with her.)

Enjoy the Present but Plan for the Future

What are your future travel plans?

Oh yes. I’m traveling in the future. It’s what I promised myself to do while I still can.

Here I am, traveling down the county road in the rain. Does that count?

But first I need to enjoy the present. Indeed, I enjoyed today very much. Who doesn’t enjoy a July day in Texas when it rains and doesn’t get above 90°? I admit to sitting on the porch and watching the rain after work. That felt great.

Other than muddy horses I have no complaints at all. They are pretty happy with the grass not being so straw-like, too.

And the dogs had fun outside. Carlton decided grass runners I’d pulled up were toys and tossed them around gleefully. Unfortunately Alfred decided the extra-dead armadillo was a toy and rolled in it. Oh that smells bad. The armadillo carcass is now unavailable to dogs.

Enjoy a happy live armadillo who lives nowhere near me. Source: free WordPress photo library

As for travel, we have camping trips, two condo stays, and a cabin rental coming up, in addition to the Master Naturalist conference. I’ll share more information as the trips take place.

And I’ll have to cancel some if we don’t have caretakers for the ranch. That (and security) is why I don’t share travel plans here. Things tend to change with no warning around here with so many folks in fragile health and such!

All is well. I’m just going to enjoy each day as much as I can without counting on any future plans coming to fruition until it’s time to go! That’s being flexible and embracing change, all right. Right?

Taking Comfort, Making Plans

What’s your go-to comfort food?

Hmm. Lately no food comforts me much. But I’d say I usually reach for something cheesy. These days it’s either those little red laughing cow rounds or cottage cheese (preferably full fat, large curd). Full fat yogurt with good fruit, like Noosa, also works. Creaminess seems to be a key. Naturally, creamy ole ice cream also does the trick. I guess I help finance the dairy industry.

Cheese. I like it (also bread—I can eat wheat and dairy just fine, being all European.

My anxiety has ticked down a notch, which I can tell because I’ve allowed myself to plan for the future (other than camping and condos; I do plan that). But today I figured out what I’d like to do with my volunteer time. Well, in addition to endless flower and insect photos.

I visited the new bird observation way station thing that’s been started by our Master Naturalist group today. I’m very impressed by how hard Gene at the Bird and Bee Farm has been working on it. He’s even obtained outside funding that is helping with fencing and future mulching.

My friend Ann is the mastermind behind the project, but she can’t do most of the heavy work. She is the expert on birds, though.

I sat on a log out there for a long time and watched a little Downy Woodpecker digging a hole, maybe for a nest. Then I watched dung beetles rolling some poop quite industriously. I realized that this was A Good Place and that I’d like to help.

So, I told Ann I’d be the chronicler of the project. I’ll take pictures and record the bird species seen and heard there. I can blog about it on the Master Naturalist blog, too. I’m feeling brave for making a plan.

Logs mark the boundaries. They’ve already run water out here, too!

It will be a great reason to be outdoors in peace and quiet while contributing to something positive. And maybe I can take some cheese out there and have a comforting picnic.

Bonus piece of oddness. There’s a crawfish in our pool. It’s just going around eating stuff.

Games People Play

What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?

I admit it. I like word games. My two favorites are Scrabble and Big Boggle. No one will play me because I’m a word professional. I’m NOT the best at either game, honest. I’m above average. I’d probably be better if anyone would play with me.

I don’t like the kind of games people play with interpersonal relationships. That’s why I enjoyed today. I spent much more time than usual talking to friends. It was a nice mix of light-hearted stuff and serious conversation. I’m sure glad I have friends to just hang out with sometimes!

This is me getting ready to go out, with a lurking husband. I was trying to show a friend my coordinating ensemble.

After talking with folks and hashing out some of my angst, I’m feeling a lot more balanced and able to act the way my principles tell me to. That made it worth a Zoom call and driving to Rockdale for fish tacos!

I’m calmer than this poor doe who was so rattled by my presence that she ran off quite flatulently. Here she’s resting between gas attacks.

Go off and enjoy your weekend. That’s my plan.