Fiona – Page 2 – The Hermits' Rest

Tiny Delightful Surprises

No daily prompt today. You don’t want to hear my ideal boring day. So let’s talk about today, which, though long, was quite fine, thanks to tiny surprises everywhere.

An actual tiny bluet (*Houstonia pusilla*)

Indeed, I was delighted to find some of my tiny wildflower friends starting to bloom, but my day was brightened by a series of less colorful tiny creatures, the sparrows. This morning, dozens of Vesper sparrows and Savannah sparrows covered the fields and fences.

Whatever they’re finding has them distracted enough that I can recognize them (those two are similar).

This guy is very graphic with my poor camera resolution.

After enjoying the morning birds, which included my first roadrunner heard in Merlin, I tried to work until the dogs went off. Men were driving a backhoe on our property. Huh? Turns out there was a water line leak they had to fix. The horses were not amused, but it was fun to watch them be curious then agitated in turn.

I think the horses were curious because in their minds, tractors bring hay. They like hay.

Another tiny flower, dwarf verbena (*Glandularia pumila*)

We were only without water for an hour or so, which was barely an inconvenience. I was able to get my stuff done in time to go back out and bother the horses some more, because it was farrier time. Terry brought a helper today, so they both got to marvel at Apache’s fancy shoes and the Artimud stuff we put in to protect his hooves. It’s quite interesting clay with honey and other things.

I put his shoes back on when he was done!

Drew was his new self, but they got him trimmed. Everyone else was fine, even Fiona, who also finally got groomed and de-burred. She was, by the way, hilarious when I was trying to take off Apache’s shoes. She kept gluing herself to me to where I’d lose my balance. At one point I realized my face was an inch from a donkey butt. She’s really friendly, but this tiny surprise wasn’t so delightful.

Dusty also finally had a much needed bur-ectomy. I finally had time to do it while the others were getting trimmed. His nearly nonexistent forelock was all bur, as was his tail. He looks good now!

I fed them after the trimming, and that’s when the next tiny sparrow flock appeared. I could hardly count these busy guys.

Looks like a pike of metal, but look closer.

The horses had a lot to say about their busy day. Mabel is proud to still have her mane burs and bits of mud. I tried.

You can’t tame me, though I appreciate the hoof work. My bad hoof needed it.

Meanwhile, Apache and Drew each didn’t finish their food and instead tried to get to the other’s pen by testing the gate. Apache tried hard.

Drew thought that was funny.

I think Drew was processing something. Maybe his hoof trim helped his issue.

He had a lot to say.

To calm myself after all the day’s activities, I went back to the woods to see who was there. The wind had calmed down, so I hoped to hear some good songs. Instead, as I stood quietly, I heard sounds like someone or something was approaching. Was it a deer? A bunny? A raccoon?

Yep. It was sparrows, this time the white-throated clan. Dozens of them were under the young cedar elms, scratching around for some delicious item. It was amazing how much noise those tiny fellows made!

Watch them go!

I had fun turning my Live Photos into tiny videos of tiny sparrows. But it does help you actually see the birds!

So many!

Yes, I was quite entranced by the little black-and-white heads bobbing up and down. They completely ignored me until I finally had to move my aching back. What a nice ending to my outdoor hours today.

I did finally go inside and finish cooking. Yes, I’m not 100% birds and horses and yarn.

My Leisure Time Surprise

What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

This answer will be pretty boring if I give the same answers I’ve given to three or four other blog prompts. Yes, indeed, I enjoy knitting and looking at birds and horses. Most of you know that if you’ve visited this blog before.

But, is there another leisure activity I enjoy? In warm weather I hang out by the pool. That counts. And I read about horses, architecture, and home decorating. The latter helps me deal with what a jumbled mess my own house is right now.

What I’ll read when I’m finished writing this

I think my favorite leisure activity is socializing these days. After staying away from people for so long, I am enjoying seeing friends again. I want to do more of it, but I forgot a couple things this week. Lunches, coffees, meetings, etc., are so nice for breaking up the work day!

Today my friend came over and I did her nails for a party. They look good!

Keeping in touch with friends online is another favorite. Yes, I admit I visit Facebook and valiantly scroll and scroll until I find posts from friends. It’s so great to stay in touch, get advice, and learn that way. Most importantly, I can provide support to others by being available online to listen. I do a lot of that lately.

Yeah, not too exciting, is it? But damn, this is what I’ve looked forward to my whole life: a time to enjoy the little things and the people I care about. I hope it lasts a while.

Now for stories. I went out to feed the horses and saw Drew standing by the fence, staring intently. What? I went on up to get the feed dishes, and something caught my eye behind me. It looked like this:

The horses weren’t at all happy to see Fiona wandering around eating fresh clover. I just wondered how she got there.

How come SHE doesn’t have to stand in the mud?

When I took their food to them I saw that the lower wire on the temporary electric fence had come loose. The big horses were still held in the pasture, but Fiona could walk right under the live wire. Clever donkey.

The wire is fixed now.

Speaking of wires, little Carlton got the staples out where he had a lump removed. Lee found out the biopsy results, too. The lump was a completely encapsulated stick, probably a cactus thorn. It had gotten infected, so he has antibiotics, but should be fine.

However, Goldie managed to nearly rip out a toenail today. It must have hurt a little!

And I do have daily birds today. The rain finally let up, which pleased the birds a lot. We even had two birds returning from their winter hangouts! I heard and saw a purple Martin, and I heard a whistling duck. Cameron residents better get ready for lots of trees full of chattering ducks. Love those guys.

Snacks? Really? Geez.

What snack would you eat right now?

Could the questions get any more trivial? I’m actually full from a delicious dinner of boneless pork ribs slow roasted in my covered baking thing from Pampered Chef. I can’t remember what it’s called but it sure makes good, moist meat.

It’s this thing. I looked it up. It’s a New Traditions Deep Dish Covered Stoneware Baker. Cranberry.

I also had a baked sweet potato and less yummy cooked radishes (they were okay), and mixed veggies I made for Lee.

Perhaps my snack was the bourbon old fashioned I made with bourbon and syrup from the Hilton Head Distillery.

I’ll visit Hilton Head this year but until then, here’s the sky this evening. I was listening to a Great Horned Owl.

That’s as fascinating as I can make snacks. I’m actually not a big snacker. Sometimes I eat snack foods for meals. My big indulgence is Goldfish crackers. Not ideal food. But I don’t do that more than a couple of times a year.

I didn’t have much else to talk about today anyway. It was cold and horridly windy, and the Polar Vortex isn’t even here yet. I can only look forward to using more colors in this year’s temperature blanket than last year’s. Yes! Freezing but pretty!

Animals are fine. I wish you could have seen Fiona directing me to which burs she wanted me to remove first. Her “underarm” area was really bugging her. She’s such a smart little creature.

All the horses decided to eat on top of their “hill” (dirt from digging the pond last year).

Carlton seems no worse for wear after his surgery yesterday. He isn’t licking the incision at all, probably because Goldie is still watching him.

See, I can jump up and ask to be let out of the fenced area!

Better stuff tomorrow, friends.

Holiday Traditions Are Few This Year

Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?

If they are referring to the winter holidays, like the Solstice or Christmas, then there’s only been one constant since my children were little, and that’s to have cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We used to eat them while opening gifts.

Something cheerful: Vlassic running at sunset.

For many, many reasons I’m not doing much for Christmas this year. It’s going to be a hard one for much of my family, and I’m not feeling very celebratory. I’m just going to go somewhere with Lee, if we can get someone to feed dogs and medicate Apache.

Speaking of horses, I caught Drew and Fiona being friendly today.

If not, I’ll stay home and eat cinnamon rolls then cook a meal for the same people I cooked Thanksgiving for. Maybe I’ll make pork loin and correct cranberry sauce. I think there will be small, handmade gifts for people.

You know, I think I just don’t want to do anything religious. I’m not happy with things being done in the name of religion these days, especially the ones stemming from Moses and his tribes. I’m disappointed in wars, book banning, misogyny, religious intolerance, and fundamentalism. All of it.

For the solstice, which at least predates Christmas, there will be candles and maybe a fire if the place we go has a fireplace. I’ll make decorations out of things from the woods and put intentions of peace into them.

It will be fine to skip materialism and shiny things for one year and concentrate on helping struggling loved ones however I can.

Daily Bird

We had some rain today, but it only rained hard briefly. It did quiet the birds down. The daily birds just have to be the European starlings.

As I went out to slog through the puddles to feed the horses, I heard sounds like tiny bells. It was a huge flock of starlings heading off to some field now that the sun was back out. It always amazes me how many there are.

I learned in a magazine that the flocks often contain the local grackles as well. Blackbirds like each other, I guess. I’m never going to love grackles, those resourceful parking lot scroungers with the incredibly annoying whistles, the great-tailed grackles. I’ll work on it.

Droodles: Master of Equine Mayhem

It’s weird. Since Apache started his medicine, he’s been a lot calmer. I wonder if he has a buzz or something.

Drew, on the other hand, has been on a real tear of peskiness and mischief lately, like he’s Loki and Apache is Thor (Apache has a lot of hair, like Thor). I’ve been watching Drew running around and chasing his herd-mates around, but never had any photographic evidence until this morning, when I saw a lot going on in the horse pens as I was feeding the chickens.

Droodles had gotten ahold of one of the food buckets and was playing with it. He picked it up and rested it on the fence; he waggled his head and threw it up and down; he ran off with it, as if he wanted to hide it from me (which probably would have worked if I hadn’t seen it).

He was really having a good time with that bucket. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his absolute favorite toy, innocently grazing and minding her own business: Fiona. Off he flew to pester her.

He ran circles around her and tried to herd her into a corner. I’m not sure why he always wants to force her into a corner, because the result is always the same: she kicks him in the head. Sadly, I didn’t catch that part of the fun.

Drew let Fiona go, because his eyes alit on yet another toy. This is an old lead rope that actually is supposed to be a toy, which is why I don’t put it away. He picked that up and flopped it around vigorously until it hit Apache in the face, leading Apache to come over to me so I could get burs out of his tail.

Drew then turned to the next object in his visual range, which is a large water trough made of the same recycled rubber as the food buckets. He spent a few minutes chomping away on that, which gave me some bur removal time.

This is too heavy to toss in the air, darn it.

But, no, not enough time. I was still de-burring when Drew sidled up beside me. I thought he wanted a treat (he knows treats exist now, because he gets them when I bridle him). But instead, he wanted to “help” me with the tail project. His idea of helping was to try to take a big chomp out of Apache’s tail. Granted, that would have gotten rid of some burs, but not how I wanted it to happen. After three attempted chomps, Apache walked away, and I had to laugh as I watched Drew trying to sneak up on him for another chomp.

I finally shooed him off and he ate some hay while I finished with the tail project. I’m sure he was at least a little tired after all that. He doesn’t know it’s lesson day, so he’s going to get even more exercise later, and not just the circles, squares, barrels, and sidepassing I make him do every other day or so. (Yesterday I even made him do something scary: go around the shed from the BACK. Oooh, that was different.)

Don’t scare me or my hair will look worse.

Daily Bird

Today’s bird is the mockingbird, because I got a nice photo of one today. I remember as a kid being deeply disappointed that the mockingbird was the state bird of Florida, because it was all gray and black and white. I wanted the blue jay, due to being able to use more crayons to color it (the state flag of Florida had that tiny Native American lady in the middle who was hard to color, by the way, and the dang flower was white, which equalled NO crayons).

This bird was really enjoying something on these branches.

Really, though, I’ve gotten so much pleasure out of mockingbirds in my life, that I’ve forgiven their boring colors. We had one that sat on the streetlight outside of our house in Brushy Creek and would sing for hours. There was also a big singer over by Sara’s horse pens back when Apache lived there. They can really come up with some doozies of songs, like backup beeps and cell phones.

The northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is a mockingbird commonly found in North America. This bird is mainly a permanent resident, but northern birds may move south during harsh weather. This species has rarely been observed in Europe. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Turdus polyglottos. The northern mockingbird is known for its mimicking ability, as reflected by the meaning of its scientific name, “many-tongued mimic”. The northern mockingbird has gray to brown upper feathers and a paler belly. Its tail and wings have white patches which are visible in flight.

The northern mockingbird is an omnivore, eating both insects and fruits. It is often found in open areas and forest edges but forages in grassy land. The northern mockingbird breeds in southeastern Canada, the United States, northern Mexico, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and the Greater Antilles. It is replaced farther south by its closest living relative, the tropical mockingbird. The Socorro mockingbird, an endangered species, is also closely related, contrary to previous opinion. The northern mockingbird is listed as of least concern according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The northern mockingbird is known for its intelligence. A 2009 study showed that the bird was able to recognize individual humans, particularly noting those who had previously been intruders or threats. Also birds recognize their breeding spots and return to areas in which they had greatest success in previous years. Urban birds are more likely to demonstrate this behavior.

The mockingbird is influential in United States culture, being the state bird of five states, appearing in book titles, songs and lullabies, and making other appearances in popular culture.
iNaturalist

They are fun to watch when mating, and their babies are darned cute, so I’m glad we have them out here at the Hermits’ Rest to entertain us on the off chance that the meadowlarks, killdeer, crows, and white-crowned sparrows get quiet. (In other words, there’s lots to hear out here.)

Bonus snow goose photo, since you can actually tell they are geese in this one, taken today.

Back at the Ranch: Amazing Animals

I made it home yesterday, but for some reason the travel completely wore me out. I guess travel is stressful, since my right eye wept all day, while the left eye had a tic. The plane travel was fine, other than the fact that the Charlotte airport was dirtier and dingier than I remembered. Of course, the flight from there to Austin was delayed, so I got to stay there and look at food on the floor and seats quite a while. By the time we boarded, I thought I’d fall asleep standing up.

None of this was heavy except the backpack, which was a carryon. It tried to kill me.

Lee was late exactly the amount my plane was late, which meant for an easy pickup, and I did try to converse with him though I was feeling distinctly zombie-like. By the time I got home I was dizzy and nauseated. What the heck? I’m much better today, with no eye issues and only a bit of fuzzy-headedness. Maybe I have 9-11 PTSD or something (for those of you who don’t know, I was on a plane headed to O’Hare when the events occurred, leading to some traumatic times).

I came home to a lot of love, though. Goldie glued herself to me the second I got into bed and didn’t move for a couple of hours. Today she’s been constantly checking on me, and also trying to inform me that she can’t sit on “her” couch because someone put an immense television on it.

So I got up and moved the immense and very heavy television. It’s the old one from our house in Round Rock, and apparently giant televisions were much heavier then. Glodie is much happier now and I can type (she kept nosing the keyboard away!).

Of course all the dogs were glad to see me, as were the chickens. Some horses seemed more glad than others. Apache was ecstatic, and glued himself to me much like Goldie did. He looks good, other than two sores on his shoulder. The good news is his grass allergy issues are gone, thanks to the Zyrtec, and the rest of him looks wonderful.

Drew was more interested in the water trough I refilled than in me, but after he drank he came and rubbed his wet face on me. He looked really clean, and I wondered why. Here is why:

Apparently, while I was gone, he figured out that the front pond is swimmable. The edges aren’t as quicksand-esque as they were when the water was higher, so he’s taken to swimming around and having a blast. Kathleen said the first time she heard the splashing, she thought we had a gator. Nope, just a sea serpent/horse hybrid.

It doesn’t appear that anyone else has joined Droodles in the horse swimming pool, but I sure was happy to watch him cruising around and having a great time.

There’s really no grass, so I need to get more hay out to them this afternoon. The heat is still miserable, and it hasn’t rained. The high was “only” 99 on Tuesday, but it’s still hard on everyone here. I will be getting out early to work with horses starting in the morning.

It was nice to get back to my office to work, though my house looks like hoarders have moved in. The rest of the furniture from my old house got brought in while we were gone and we’re still working out where to put everything. Much of the stuff is in our newest shipping container, and I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to the guys who moved everything out of our old church, up and down those stairs.

Yes, we no longer own a church, which I’m not too sad about, because now Cameron gets a new church. I’m told the minister is really nice, so I’m happy for them. It looks like it’s time for our real estate business to find a new investment.

Thanks for reading, and hi to all you new readers! I do have a book report to write, which I hope to get done tomorrow. It takes thought, and I’m too tired to think right now.

All Is Well in the Bird Kingdom

This morning when I went out, the black vulture was still on top of the rock pile. It looked like some of the water that had been left after Drew messed with it was gone. Good sign.

The rocks, the bird, and the water dish.

I watched the bird a while. It’s black eyes were bright and it kept stretching its wings. They both looked more similar than last night. Still, I was worried about it.

While the bits of flight were a good sign, I still decided to call the folks at All Things Wild. The woman I spoke with said we could catch to trap it and bring it in, but that would be traumatic. She suggested we keep offering water and give it some raw chicken necks or backs. I put those on the grocery list.

Meanwhile, I did find Billie Idyll under the tack room. She is not as good with heat as the other hens. Poor dear. They all just hunker down near water in the heat of the day and run around around sunrise and sunset. seems smart.

The great blue heron, as you can see a above, was stretching himself into interesting positions all morning. I wondered if he was showing off for the female, but I didn’t see her.

It was very hard to get a cow-free photo.

I went back out to check on the vulture around noon, and I was relieved to see it had flown off. I guess its injuries were better and it could go seek a tree or deeper cover. I called off the order for chicken parts, and was glad I didn’t have to throw a blanket over it and stick it in a box to go to Georgetown.

The heron wants nothing to do with that!

All is well with the birds, at least. Dogs and horses are fine, too. And the fish. Yep, they’re just fine, because they are in the shade.

Oh, My Aching Back

I’m feeling pretty handicapped today. I’m no someone with a bad back, by any means, but like many of us, I’ve occasionally tweaked it. That happened today.

But it’s worth it to see these beauties in my pasture.

I woke up just fine. I had a couple work meetings then went out to feed the chickens and say hi to the snakes. I’ve got to look up whether rat snakes often hang out together so much. They were just patrolling I guess.

I looked over and saw Fiona standing there, looking at me. I thought she needed some loving and since it wasn’t hot yet, now was the time to groom her remaining long hairs off her back. So, I got a curry comb and brush.

She was so happy. I enjoyed the bonding time, but I noticed a little zing as I reached down to get to her belly. Boom. That did my back in! At least Fiona looked good.

I didn’t bring my camera when I groomed her, but here she is waiting her turn to have her hooves trimmed.

I got pretty incapacitated as the day went on. It was pretty uncomfortable sitting at my desk! I realized I would need help with the upcoming farrier visit. Luckily, Sara was home and said she’d come help me.

I went out to help her round up the horses and put them in their pens. I was just sure I couldn’t do it in my stiff and hobbling state. Was I wrong! First, Apache (the hard to catch one) and Fiona were already in a pen. I shut the gate. Dusty had headed over to me already, so he went in when I asked. That was easy!

Mabel was way out in the pasture, but when she saw me, she ambled on over and walked into a pen with no effort on my part. That left Drew. He was standing and relaxing in the little paddock next to the pens, which I’d recently opened up. I walked over and said hi, and he gently laid his head on my shoulder, as he loves to do. I then asked him to come with me. He followed right along, with his nose next to my hand, like a well-trained fancy horse.

Who were these horses and where did my horses go? I didn’t need Sara at all to gather the horses at all! But I did need her to pick up the horses’ food bowls for me. I could NOT bend over. I’m so grateful for good neighbors.

The farrier visit went pretty well. Fiona was a very good girl being trimmed. She needed it badly, and Terry the farrier showed me how he trimmed her feet to look like donkey feet, not horse feet, so I learned something.

If I was smart, I’d have taken an after picture. But we had to go get Mabel trimmed. Her front left hoof looked pretty bad, and I think it hurt. She told us in no uncertain terms she was unhappy. We were nimble and avoided her rearing and kicking. Great for my back! Terry is so patient, though, and was able to get her feet done and even smooth out the hurt hoof. She ended up much happier, I think.

I did put heat on my back, which felt odd in 100° heat, but it enabled me to feed the horses when I got back in the house, I took a muscle relaxer, and I now feel better as long as I don’t move. I’ll take another tonight. I sure hope I feel better tomorrow, since I have a horse lesson, unless it’s too hot, which it may be. Ugh.

I wish you the love that Penney has for Lee.

I’m weird

What is one word that describes you?

This question made me smile. I’ve felt weird my whole life. I made up a club called the Weird Happys (sic.) in middle school and invited all my interesting, smart, non-traditional friends to join.

I’m a weird donkey who escaped after dinner.

I’ve always been weird, non-standard and rather off center. That’s never been a problem except when I wanted someone I found fascinating and atypical to be my friend, but it turned out I wasn’t their kind of weird. Trying to fit in NEVER has worked. I eventually wear out my welcome and am shown the door. Like:

My previous job
My church (was informed I no longer fit their demographic because I liked small, community oriented congregations)
The animal welfare group I helped found (those of you who know, know why)
La Leche League (turns out I’m not a good cult candidate)
The yarn shop friends where I used to teach knitting and crochet (some individuals are still friendly, though)
My book group (they ghosted me!)
My marriage to my kids’ dad
Etc.

I felt bad about these things at the time, but now I realize I don’t need to put my weirdness where it bothers others. I have choices, and it’s better to be true to myself than to try to fit in.

These guys just deal with my weirdness because they have no choice. Awww.

Anyway, my word is weird, and I’m happy now. I’ll enjoy the communities I have now while I can, and move on gracefully when it becomes apparent that I’m not a good fit.

I’ll be as graceful as blue-eyed grass, which appeared this week.

But hey, I still feel accepted by most people in my Master Naturalist group (I don’t expect them to all love me, just to work together). And I’m doing okay in the little horse community I’ve found myself in, thanks to us all loving horses! That’s plenty of folks to be weird around.

I am glad folks accept that I get frustrated when I can’t ID a plant.

Plus, my hobbies and family keep me happy and centered. I can be a Weird Happy!

A Horsey Roller Coaster

I’m always being warned by people wiser than me that I should expect ups and downs with Drew and Apache. Monday was a big down for Apache, with his difficulty settling down.

And I’d been concerned that I’d messed up with little Droodles, too. But today was extra encouraging. He came up and asked to go out. He was rewarded by a chance to do more “mowing” and enjoy the removal of excess hair. He’s looking good.

I wish I had a picture of him standing there watching me and Apache when I groomed him. He is really looking like a healthy horse.

As for Apache, he was back to his new normal today. He jumped great going left and medium going right. And he cantered up a storm in the round pen, looking happy.

These flowers made me happy. The dewberries smell great.

Our ride was just great, too. We did a bunch of the things in the Trail test just fine. I was so pleased. Lee said all he heard while working on the RV was “good boy, Patchy!” I did say it a lot. I am not so concerned about the show this weekend. We will get lots done tomorrow and Friday, and he will have fun.

I had fun breathing on Suna, gluing myself to her, and trying to eat the eggs. She wouldn’t let me.

And in honor of International Woman’s Day, here’s our girl Mabel, leaving her leftovers to her buddy Apache.