Requests come in for more about the dogs. Ok, fine. Today, they were all wound up, so I took the dogs out to explore the woods and creek. They love that.
Carlton, Alfred, Penney, and Harvey check out one of the ponds.
We must have looked cute, because someone stopped to take a picture of us! Alfred insisted on taking a drink out of every pond or big puddle he came across.
Mmm this one is good. Ah, small but tasty. Carlton likes it, too.
We had a blast, even though it was a bit chilly and windy. The dogs smelled many things, rolled in poop, and found things to chew on. Penney found a possum skull. Ick. No pictures of that! She wouldn’t put it down, and spent most of the afternoon enjoying it.
Perhaps my title is better than this post will come out to be, but this points out to me that I need to stop trying to write about two things in one post, just to not appear to be blogging crazed.
Bull, Big Load
Yesterday, Vlassic and I went to feed the horses after work. He was happy, because I gave him his yummy heartworm pill, so we had a nice time on our walk. I looked up and said hi to Apache, then turned to say hi to Spice and Lakota, when something moved in the holding pen. WHOA. It was big.
Who the heck are YOU?
Yep, there was a bull I’d never seen before. He was, to say the least, beefy, quite a load of bull. I was like, uh oh, he probably won’t like me going around messing near him. I could see that he’d been upset and dug the dirt and mud up in the pen. So I said hi.
Hey. I’m a bull. Nice to meet you.
I went ahead and fed the horses. Every time I walked by the pen, the bull followed me. It occurred to me he might be a NICE bull. When Vlassic went up to him and they just sniffed each other, I was pretty confident.
I like hay. It builds muscles.
I got him a bit of fresh hay, and he walked right up and took some out of my hand! Then he poked the water tub. It was empty. Ah, someone is thirsty. As I filled the water tub, I checked out his ear tags. It appeared he was an All American bull.
Here you can see he has TWO labeled ear tags. And a nose ring. Obviously he is used to being handled.
We chatted for a while as he ate and drank, and he seemed happy to hang out with me. That’s obviously someone’s former show bull or something. And wow, he sure has big feet. I wondered why he suddenly was in the pen, all by himself. As we know, I am NOT a part of the cattle operations, but I still wondered.
As we walked by, the people who would have the answers happened to drive up. I said I gave that All American bull some hay. They laughed and said that is actually his name! He had just been brought over, and probably just shoved in the pen and left alone. No wonder he was lonely and craving company, poor guy!
When we got back, Vlassic had to tell Gracie Lou ALL about his adventures with the gargantuan being. Or at least I prefer to think so.
Hey Gracie, guess what?
I met a GIANT cow that was nice and didn’t want to be chased!
I’m hoping All American has been led to his harem by the time I get to feed horses today. I look forward to some very pretty golden calves in the fall!
Dillo in the Dirt
And now for another mess. When I looked outside this morning, a part of the field in front of the house looked suspiciously blackened. What could that have been? I hoped it wasn’t hogs. I was at an angle to where I couldn’t see exactly what was going on.
We went out on the porch later, and could see that there wasn’t massive upheaval, like hogs would create. But there was definitely a disturbance in the dirt.
Who’s been digging?
After my morning meetings, I headed out to inspect in person. DANG. It looked like a wild pack of armadillos had come through and feasted on something.
That’s way more concentrated than the usual armadillo holes.
I have my suspicions that the delicacy is whatever is making tell-tale piles of castings all over the property. Earthworms or grubs are my guesses. In any case, the feeding frenzy has done a great job of aerating the soil.
Vlassic, my black dachshund mix, is always a good source of funny stories. Since Penney showed up, we don’t get to hang around constantly, since he’s been quite happily keeping Lee’s brother company over at the RV, but still, we have our good times.
BUDDIES!!
Yesterday I was pretty happy to have time to walk to feed the horses. Since Vlassic was out running around, leaping and jumping, he got to come with me, which he usually does when Sara and her dogs aren’t there. We had a good time heading up to the barn, greeting Copper, the other dog on our property, with no problems.
Then I got a text. Sara was home and heading over. Oops. I asked her if she could leave her dogs, but she didn’t get the message. Vlassic knew just what to do, though, and ran in the tack room, waiting for me to shut the door. He learns FAST.
I’m always up to something. Fish food is tasty!
Naturally, the cattle dogs lost interest, and we were able to leave, though he yelled at me before I picked him up…he has some delicate spot that bothers him. So, back we went, enjoying the weather, etc.
When I got back to our ranch, I stopped to talk to CC, and we were just chatting away, while Bertie Lee pecked at my shoes, as usual. At one point, Lee’s brother opened the RV door and called for Vlassic to come back in. Hmm, where did he go?
We called a bit more vigorously, and he came absolutely flying out of the garage. I noticed, through the blur, that he had something in his mouth. It was round. After he disappeared in the RV, I figured it out. He had found an EGG!
No wonder he ran so fast, that sneaky boy! CC went in to look for the contraband. Vlassic was innocently installed in his bed, looking very nonchalant. But, sure enough, sitting on the dinette seat was a Bertie egg. Obviosly, she didn’t get locked in the coop long enough to teach her to lay eggs in the henhouse.
The front egg is the one we found in the garage. The other two were in the henhouse, courtesy of Star and Springsteen.
The egg had bite marks on it, so we left it for Lee’s brother to cook ASAP. Then we searched the garage for the new egg hiding spot. I was very proud to live up to my “finder” reputation, because I spotted a little brown egg under the utility sink. Oh, Bertie.
CC put stuff in the new spot, to block it off. I looked today, and she hadn’t laid an egg there yet. I’ll have to search around later today.
Hooray! The minute I wrote that the weather was boring, it started getting interesting. While we do get a dusting of snow here in Central Texas, today is the first time I’ve ever seen it really snow. It’s been as pretty as when I was in Utah!
Here’s the woods next to the house.
We got around 4 inches as the day went on, and at times it snowed pretty hard. I’m so glad I didn’t have to work today, because all I did was look out the window
Around midday
The most fun, though has been going out and playing with the dogs. Here’s the best one.
Alfred discovers snow. It’s barely covering the ground here.
Penney and Carlton acted like the snow was a big present for them. I’ve never seen them happier. Here’s the first time they went out.
Whee!
Harvey finds sheltered spots to pee, then comes back in. Not a snow dog. The others sure are. I took Penney and Carlton out in the woods, and the joy all three of us felt was enough to erase all my stress.
Hmph. So many local people I know are posting photos of their kids seeing their first snow and such. What do we have at the Hermits’ Rest Ranch? Rain. Sleet at best.
Yep. We managed to get right between the snowy parts. There was some “wintry mix” earlier, because I see white stuff outside and there is some ice on the metal roof. and the precipitation is falling at an odd angle.
Squint your eyes and you can see white.
All is not lost, though. the temperature is going down. We may well get some pretty stuff to enjoy. And I don’t have to drive today!
The dogs don’t want me to get out of bed. But I need to.
Glad to have a closet organization project to work on in between knitting and reading my next fascinating book.
My cute organization boxes! Better than a line of shoeboxes!
I’ll be back with something more interesting than this slice of my Sunday morning later today. So far, all I have is watching murders of crows fly back and forth and looking at sleet. I have confidence we will get our rare mid-Texas snow!
How to make it snow
Blog that you’re pouting about a lack of snow. This is less than 5 minutes after I first posted.
My somewhat large, white, short-haired dog, Carlton, has been chilly lately. Because of that, he’s spending a lot of time on our laps, under covers, or on us in bed (he used to sleep next to me, but lately he’s been on top of that excellent source of warmth, Lee). Sometimes he asks to get under the covers and sleeps next to me.
This is my frequent view of Carlton the Dogman.
But, also, he has been hanging around with me in my little recliner when I’m home, nuzzling under the afghan I’m knitting. It’s a good thing I’d already planned to wash it before giving it to the recipient!
For a dog, he has a great occlusion. Look how well his teeth meet.
He likes to raise his head up and ask me to pet his neck. I realized I could get some pretty fun photos of him while he did this, and want to share them with you. He is one pink dog with weird blue eyes, that’s for sure.
This close, it’s fun to see all the different directions his hair grows.
I feel so lucky to have him in my life. I guess I must, if I write about him twice in one week!
One thing I’ve figured out in the past year is that I need more rest than I’d been getting. My mental health is so much better now that I’m allowing myself more downtime. I’m going to try to keep that up. After all, I’m at the Hermits’ Rest. I should rest when I can.
My role model.
I’m not even going to pressure myself to blog if I don’t have anything useful to say. My plan for today is to finally ride Apache again, and otherwise knit and play with dogs.
My role model can snooze under the afghan while I knit, now (that’s the back).
I guess there IS good among the challenges of this era. I do see more self care and kindness to others. Let’s keep it up!
Front of afghan, actually with Carlton under it, too !
One of the things I would like to do this year is change the color of my bedroom at the Hermits’ Rest. It is a shade of chocolate brown that I chose in hopes of making the immense room look more cozy. Here’s a picture of Harvey looking like he’s calling a meeting to order, which shows the color.
Hmm, that looks even darker than it actually is.
What I didn’t do when I chose the color, was compare it to the color of the floor, doors, cabinetry, and trim, which are a currently unfashionable cherry stain. The wall color is more of a “bluish” brown and looks sorta sick to me. (I do not care if cherry and reddish wood tones are not in fashion. They will probably come back into fashion again before I die, knowing how things cycle.)
This photo, from my “shoes I like” blog post, shows the reddish color of the floors (which are actually bamboo).
Plus, this is MY house, it’s a ranch house, and the color looks nice and rustic to me. We’re never moving from here, so resale value can be something my heirs deal with as they rush to sell our hayseed property as fast as their urban-living selves can do it.
Perhaps, off in the background, you can see how the shelves and the wall color aren’t nice together.
I must admit, though, that while I take lots of pictures of things I like (my office, plants, dogs, chickens, horses, renovations), I do NOT take many pictures of my bedroom. I used to not like the furniture or the arrangement, but I like it a bit better now. That said, I haven’t taken a photo of the room in a long time, other than these images of a lamp and dogs.
I like the light-colored window trim with the wall color just fine. Also note that this room contains furniture I bought 30 years ago for my first “grownup” living space, plus a very old swam rocker from my family. There is a loveseat under that sheet, to collect dog hair and get washed often.
So, What New Color?
I want to repaint the room, or at least most of it. I’d like a deep or saturated color, to keep the room feeling warm, and contrast with the light-colored furniture that’s there, under dog-proofing. I don’t need to match curtains, since there are only prayer flags, and I always buy inexpensive bed covers, due to dogs and their propensity to ruin things with their toenails. So, I can get another color.
Our rugs are maroon and brown, which are the exciting theme colors from before. Right now those seem really gloomy to me. We can use them elsewhere, like in the office building, and get happier ones.
Here Are Ideas I Have:
Turquoise: that frightens Lee
Robins-egg blue: that would let us keep one wall brown (probably behind the bed), since that color goes well with brown.
Coral or terra cotta: I like orange, and these are less scary versions of orange.
Sage green: I love this color, but I have enough of it already.
Buttery yellow: that’s the color of my bedroom in Austin, and I love it (and it has a contrasting milk-chocolatey brown wall that I also want to change. I must have been in a brown period 5 years ago.
Colors to Avoid
Red: my favorite color, but not good in a bedroom. Ditto maroon.
Pink: I think Lee would go all sexist on that, plus I only like a few shades of pink, myself.
Blue other than the two shades mentioned above. I’m not fond of blue.
Black: Yuck. I don’t care how trendy it is.
White: Nope. Too sterile.
Gray: A warm gray might be okay, but I have painted so many rooms gray lately that I’m tired of it.
Tan: the whole rest of the damned house is tan.
Before we had any furniture, Lee said this was the most white-folks colored room he ever saw. Yes, that thing I am knitting is getting longer!
So, what shades have I not thought of? And yes, I would LOVE wallpaper, but we would have to re-texture the walls. That costs money, and people starting a new business generally don’t spend money on things like that until there is profit to be had!
A Doggy PS
You may remember that yesterday I posted a photo of the delicious lemon cake I baked and carefully decorated. Sigh. I set it as far back as I could on the kitchen counter, but someone very tall and with a giant tongue managed to find it.
Cake is now much higher up. The empty spot is where Alfred “tasted” the frosting.
We now have to store all bread and other tasty items in cupboards or on the bar. Well, I like things put away, ANYWAY. And I still love Alfred.
Lee tells Alfred he still loves him, in the very tan downstairs open concept room.
When we got my very pale dog, Carlton, he was around 4 months old. Sandra told us he’d been taken from his mother at 4 weeks and given to a child as a birthday present. Once the novelty wore off, he was chained outside for a couple months until Sandra rescued him and took him to the pound.
Just a blue-eyed boy.
She babied him and socialized him until I decided I wanted a small dog to commute with me between Cameron and Austin. He looked perfect in size and temperament. And he was so beautiful. He had weird blue eyes and we weren’t sure how well he could see.
My favorite picture of when I got him.
So, we took him to doctors and such, determining he could indeed see at least some, and that his coloring is a rare double Merle variation. Luckily, he has a Fox terrier spotting pattern that covers his ears. So he can hear!
Beautiful.
Carlton didn’t work out as a commuter dog. After he pulled me down a steep, wet hill and messed up my ankle (still hurts often) we decided to leave him at the ranch where he could run and grow. Soon, Vlassic appeared out of nowhere and I had my small dog!
Today!
It’s the day we arbitrarily decided is Carlton’s third birthday. He now weighs around 40 pounds and looks like the Greyhound Bus logo. He’s very fast and seems to see just fine. We think being confined on the short chain as a pup delayed his vision development, but he’s good now.
He does like to chew. And Alfred taught him to find food on the counter. Grr.
The most important thing to me is our bond. We sure love each other. The thing I look forward to most every evening is when he delicately steps onto my recliner and settles between my feet. He will lean his head way back and stick that pink nose upside down in my face. After a tiny lick he will settle down with a big sigh. That makes my day.
Night night.
Every night, he sleeps at my feet, or at my side if Needy Penney lets him.
Hiding from the lights.
Carlton is now a really good dog. He’s grown out of his youthful barking and jumping, which helps a lot. We enjoy watching him play and run with the other dogs and don’t have to worry about him chasing cows, because we don’t let him out much. Well, no dog is perfect.
There hasn’t been an update on our ranch citizens in a while, and tonight’s sunset inspired me to write one.
There’s a bonus dog in this photo!
Last night’s solstice sunset was apparently amazing, but I was busy lighting candles and missed it. Luckily a friend took great photos for me to enjoy.
The sun sets right on our road.
As the sun disappeared it looked like a tribute to the universities I attended (orange and blue!)
Shiny.
Anyway, most of the ranch residents are doing well, but we’ve discovered a new chicken killer, our resident harrier. No wonder they call them chicken hawks. Sigh. But, as always, we have a plan. Since that hawk only goes after them out in the lawn, we’re going to keep the chickens cooped up for a while.
A project!
The newly arranged coop is getting its fancy new roof. Once it’s done, the residents will get locked in. That will annoy Gertie the Guinea a lot, but we want him alive! And hopefully it will remind my buddy Bertie where she should lay her eggs.
Harvey was a great supervisor, I’m told.
And to end on a happier note, I got home early enough today to play with Apache and Fiona. Apache was thrilled, and showed it his usual way.
Oh boy! I get to play with Suna, after I pee.
We got to go for a nice walk, and then I got him to run and trot around for a while. He seems in good shape.
As we were trotting, Fiona got all excited and started galloping around us in circles, hee-hawing away. After four or five circuits, Apache and I turned around to trot back. Fiona then zoomed into the race and began bellowing at Ralph’s cows.
I was wondering if I would ever get her back in the pen, but when Apache and I went in, she barreled in with us. I guess the both had some fun! So did I.
The Hermits' Rest 