I’ve shared some of my “issues” before, but here’s the one I feel worst about. I truly hate unpacking. From trips to big moves, I hate it all. The reasons are not clear to me. But I have only a certain amount of unpacking energy that has to be used quickly before it goes away for months or years.
Yay! More Mom embroidery! We know where it will go.
I got a good burst shortly after we moved into the Bobcat Lair, and it was really draining. I had to give myself rewards to keep going. Having to fold every single box into a flat shape and smooth out all the paper so it could be recycled was the worst. We made so many trips to Goodwill and recycling, ugh.
I’ve had this pig my whole life. It has eyebrows. I love it’s face.
Today’s bonus post is about how recycling and properly disposing of waste really, really matters. This is not more of my New Age jargon. It’s real, man.
Here’s a picture from this date in 2015 of Sara and me out riding. She is on Apache, who is now my horse, and I am on her previous horse, Aladdin. This was the first time I rode a horse other than the ancient plodding sweetheart, Pardner.
Yesterday, as often happens on weekends, Sara and I were out riding our horses. It was a really beautiful day, and the horses (Spice and Apache) were informing us that they’d rather do things other than what we were asking, so we needed to keep them out there to remind them we are the leaders and they are the followers.
So we wandered all over the property where it wasn’t too wet to wander. There were still a lot of good-sized puddles that are turning into small ponds, so I practiced convincing Apache it would be fun to walk through them, while Sara convinced Spice she really DID want to trot in giant circles.
Speaking of not being bored, Apache is learning the new skill of riding with a bit and bridle! We usually just use his halter and reins. Next, I have to learn to use the new tools.
That got boring, so we went into a pasture we’d not ridden in much before, over where our precious cattle are. There are some cool low spots I want to investigate on foot over there.
What was cute, though, was “checking on” the cattle. Basically that meant we walked up to each of them and calmly said “hey, cow/calf.” The littlest calf, who’s chocolate brown and very dainty (her mom was the youngest mother of the group) hid behind the larger bull calf at first, but then she peeked out and came right up to us.
All the mother cows have known these horses for years, so they were fine.
And what about plastic?
I’m getting there. We took two different routes to return the horses to their pasture, do to gate rearrangement needs (a common ranch thing, moving gates around). I was walking toward Sara as she was bringing Spice to where I was, and I noticed she was carrying something funny looking.
What in the world is she carrying?
I asked her if she’d found a plastic bag on the ground (we have recently found mylar balloons, which I think I’ve mentioned).
She said yes, but look at the decorations. Oh, ick, the bag was covered in nuggets of horse poop. One of our equine friends had eaten it and excreted it (and we all looked at Apache).
This image, seared into your brain, should convince you to not randomly throw away plastic bags.
Friends, that could have messed up his innards big time. Obstructions kill horses. They aren’t great for cattle either.
Fiona says she’s grossed out, too.
So please, please don’t let loose of mylar balloons and don’t let your plastic grocery bags fly off. Not only do most of them end up way up in trees, which looks awful, but if they end up on the ground, very valuable livestock could ingest them. That would be sad.
PS: Sara reminded me that they lost a calf (valued at thousands of dollars) once because it ate a mylar balloon. Expensive balloons!
I’ll have a long and thoughtful post in the next few days on another topic, but until then, maybe I’ll just spew forth random comments from the past couple of days.
Maybe they aren’t really s pirals, but the symmetry attracted me.
I’ve been seeing spirals everywhere lately, even in the plants at the reception desk where I work. I wonder what all that’s about?
It’s prickly but darned pretty.
Maybe it’s just the time of year, when everything’s sprouting. I mean, wow, that is one attractive thistle.
All these lovely dandelions make me hungry for a salad or spring tonic or something.
Maybe it’s reminding me of recycling, which has as its theme image a mobius strip (which I didn’t realize until Joyce Conner mentioned it at our Master Naturalist meeting last week! Duh!).
Spealing of recycling, we recycled old t-shirts into tote bags to give out on Earth Day!
Joyce is a very thoughtful person, and she has been putting a great deal of thought into recycling, its benefits and its issues. She shared a lot of them at our meeting, which no doubt got everyone thinking about their own beliefs about recycling our waste.
I attempted to recycle myt-shirt sleeve into a visor. I think I failed.
Joyce showed us how much of the stuff we carefully recycle goes straight into landfills, because no one wants to recycle it. Apparently, we used to send a lot to China, but they don’t want it anymore.
In the end, she suggested that we concentrate on the reduce and re-use parts of the reduce, reu-use, recycle trio. That made sense to me. We try to re-use a lot of the glassware we buy things in, and I have started recycling boxes by decorating them and using them for storage, rather than buying decorative boxes.
Many of my friends re-use yarn rather than buying new, too.
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The Hermits' Rest 