Worrying isn’t going to change anything. It never does. So I work at not worrying.
I thought my volunteer flower collection would be cheerful.
The problem for me is that I don’t know what we can do to prevent a bleak future with very few powerful people and many, many people who must fend for themselves.
I don’t remember ever wanting to know what it was like to be one of the educated people in the Dark Ages who weren’t in power.
The present is still here, and we can make our little corners of the world full of respect and kindness as we wait to see what those in power, elected by people wanting to back to the past, decide to do with us.
Bleak. I’m feeling bleak today. It was a bad news day for the poor, the sick, and the elderly. I have a right to feel pessimistic. At least for now I can say so in public.
On the other hand, on a local level, it’s a good day for Texas Horned Lizards, because I found a nice new harvester ant bed. Horny toads eat them!
This large ant bed is near the horse pens Ants are busy.
To cheer me up, I’ll share that I had a visit from a beautiful female Summer Tanager this evening around sunset. She bopped around the salvia plants for quite some time, though I was too entranced to get a photo. What a treat!
Gosh, I’m not excited about much in the future. Watching the fall of a civilization and seeing the rights of myself and my friends and family threatened isn’t what I’d call exciting; it’s more terrifying. And I feel so small and powerless (if one more person tells me I can make everything better by voting I will over-react in a ridiculous fashion. I DO vote but that’s not how things truly get done).
I’m feeling old, tattered, and fragile, like this wind-beaten Viceroy
Wait, I do look forward to driving around in Seneca and finding new bits of nature to explore. I hope to have that freedom. After all, I’m a harmless old woman and I have a heterosexual spouse, so I’m not too threatening on the surface. I just want to look at birds, bugs, and plants. Finding new ones is excitement enough for me.
This katydid was new for me: Black-margined Shieldback (Pediodectes nigromarginatus), pretty much only found in Texas.
And maybe Drew and I can become good partners! At least he is listening to my instructions like a champ this week. He walks until he is asked to trot. Hoorah!
We are good equines. We will be here for future excitement.
As for present excitement, we didn’t get any with Hurricane Beryl in our part of Texas, so I concentrated on seeing how my friends near Houston and on the coast fared. I was happy that our family members made it fine.
There was wind and .11” of rain here. I enjoyed the wind and the smell you get from hurricane clouds. You smell a little salt are, like the “cool Gulf breeze” Lee’s dad used to talk about when it was sweltering in Yorktown, Texas. To me it feels like Florida, when I’d take long walks at night in my breezy neighborhood just west of Ft. Lauderdale. I just stood and felt the wind for a good while this afternoon. Living in the moment!
Here’s a moment: the blanket through yesterday. If it hadn’t cooled off yesterday, there would have been a whole row of 95-99° highs.
I think the livestock were the happiest with today’s weather. The wind or “something gray” blew open the gate to the back pasture, so I found the horses far away at horse time. They liked that. Plus, Bianca, the lone chicken, was practically her old self today, since it didn’t get over 90°. She was out catching insects and sitting in the water trough like a happy hen.
Even her comb has some color in it again.
So yeah, even though I’m going through one of my pessimistic spates, I see what’s good out there! We all need each other’s support, so if you notice someone faltering, please reach out!
Maybe my exciting future bird will look like this!
I’m pessimistic about life in three years, and it creeps into my nightmares.
I will probably stop working in Corporate America by then. I hope there’s still Social Security.
I’m three years I’ll still find tiny baby insects cute.
We may have to go somewhere we feel safer. Texas elected officials make policies that worry me, as someone who’s not an evangelical Christian white guy.
Think of the trees, Suna. Breathe.
I’m not sure there will be places not run by extremist dictators in three years to go to.
And it will be hot and dry.
Hope I can still have horses. Though at the moment mine are getting on my last nerve. I’m addition to each being covered by burs, there’s this.
Drew broke the water line to the trough. It flew 20 feet. Drew then thought it was a snake and huffed at it. I gave Apache his first very expensive pill. He completely ate around it. Argh.
All the people turning on each other with intolerance and cruelty messes with my mind. I think that’s actually a reasonable response.
Oh, I’ll probably just keep trying to be kind and work for peace in my own way. Mother Nature will still be here. Love will be here. They both may just be harder to find.
When I was young, I read comic books as much as I could. I loved the Superman family (especially Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes). Sometimes the writers seemed to run out of ideas and published some really dumb concepts. Bizarro Superman, from Bizarro World was one of those concepts, but always good for a laugh.
This is from 1960. From hipcomic.com
Things in Bizarro World were recognizable but just not quite right. It confused both the Bizarros and the “real” world. (I feel as if BW might not go over as well today, though apparently the tradition still lives.)
Bizarre? No, good. Grass is growing on our new little hill and a flock of killdeer has taken over the bank.
In conversation with…well…with everyone I’ve communicated with about our lives, I’ve heard tale after tale of how life has just gotten strange recently. More than one person has said, “I feel like I live in a different world,” or words to that effect.
Ack! Giant spider eats wasp! Bizarre!
I’m right there with them. Things have happened in the past few years that have made my world unfamiliar. Recent elections. What the heck? People mass shooting each other so often it’s become commonplace. I don’t get it. People shooting up infrastructure that supports innocent families and businesses because…why?
Breathe, Suna
That’s just the big picture. People are getting weird sicknesses. Families are falling apart no matter how hard they try. My generation is trying to figure out how to support elders who spent all their money but expect…stuff. I’m pessimistic about the future.
Bizarro World.
Regular World with noms
Honestly, I’m so glad I have dogs and horses and they are still acting like dogs and horses. I need something consistent and not weirdly out of left field.
Ommm
I just feel like the world is so odd and unpredictable that I don’t want to make much effort. So I got my 2022 snow globe that says “love is love.” And some tree candles. No real tree, just a few decorations. Many say “peace,” which seems bizarrely impossible these days.
Spot my overly subtle Yule decor.
How about you? Are you in a ball of pessimism like me? What’s bizarre in your life? What helps you keep it together? Sunsets? Full moons. Here are some, anyway.
Sunset, moon, horses — see if you can find the moon in the horse photos.
The Hermits' Rest 