swimming pool – The Hermits' Rest

Self-care-a-rama

Worrying about my sick dogs won’t help, so after getting them both to eat their medicine (Harvey eats anything and Goldie finally ate hers with chicken breast), I figured I’d better work on my own well being.

Work was a good distraction, especially if you enjoy rolling reorganizations. But I really leaned into (ooh, I finally used “lean in” on purpose) making a comfortable environment for myself. I haven’t been able to swim due to being on antibiotics and wanting to stay out of the sun, but I worked on making the pool area better by getting rid of two volunteer trees and more annoying nutsedge and spotted spurge. It was too windy to use herbicide, and besides, it doesn’t work on sedges.

The biggest improvement I made was to set up my outdoor workstation where I can keep my laptop and phone charged. My household member got us a bartered table with two chairs that’s perfect for my needs. The chairs are comfy and easy to clean.

Lee helped me get it perfectly in the middle of the back porch, where it’s always shady and there’s usually a pleasant breeze. It will get more sun in winter, I hope. At least I’ll be able to use it in three seasons.

Watching horses, birds, and cattle are really soothing for me and keep me centered. I’ll need that for the foreseeable future.

Apache points out that petting him is self care

Self care also means looking around and enjoying life around me. That was helped by discovering this beautiful new (to me) butterfly, the Common Mestra (Mestra amymone). It’s pretty on both sides. I got to watch it feeding on frog fruit for quite some time. I just found out from my friend Linda Jo that this butterfly hasn’t been recorded on iNaturalist since 2016!

There were also the usual flowers, fungi, and insects. I’m so glad there’s always something new.

One kind of self care I engaged in was getting the heck out of a potentially dangerous situation. I went to pick up a package from by the front gate, and heard a droning noise. Oh my gosh, it was another swarm of bees, only these weren’t all massed together. They were everywhere. I couldn’t tell what kind of bees they were nor if they were angry. I left after taking this picture. Zoom in and you’ll see all the insects!

Maybe Lee disturbed them when he mowed the roadside.

I also tried to take a nice walk in the woods to see the pond on the other side of the fence, but tiny and zippy mosquitoes chased me off. I understand why the cow that was glaring at me went swimming.

Between all the outdoor pampering and some great conversations with friends, I’m not too bad. At least the Covid symptoms are about gone.

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!

Relaxing

We didn’t get any rain today, but we got nice clouds, and the high temperature barely got into the 90s.

That enabled me to accomplish many mundane outdoor tasks like weeding and setting up the pool furniture, work with Drew (sadly, Apache has a sore foot AGAIN*), and relax.

After a good day’s work and all those chores, I went for a nice swim for more exercise. The water feels great now that we figured out that the pool heater was somehow turned on and it’s back to normal! I got in my beloved pool float and just drifted around in the cool breeze. I felt like a happy wet noodle.

No photos of me floating, so here’s this morning’s Great Egret in the pond.

To demonstrate how relaxed I was: after I got out I sat in my chair by the woods to listen to birds. It was just perfect, so chill that when I heard a rustling noise I just looked down and enjoyed watching a shiny coach whip snake go on its way along the fence.

It stopped at the gate and paused, looking at me with its bright eyes, then headed on its way. It just said, “Hey, snake.”

Amazing what a little break in the weather can do for you.

*his foot is sore from getting some stuff trimmed that exposed bruising from his previous episode. Tarrin told me how to treat it, and he’s better today.

Sunday Plarn and Pool

I’m still pretty out of it, so let’s talk about good parts of today. As always, plants, animals, and insects are good, even the differential grasshoppers, who lurk everywhere to surprise me.

Hi. Am I bothering you? No? Let me go crawl in the chain on a gate so you’ll have to move me and my buddies.

Even the birds are feeling the summer heat. I enjoyed watching these Brown-headed Cowbirds today. They were making their weird gurgling noise.

Say what you will about them, but they sing prettily

The chickens and horses are feeling the heat, too. Poor guys.

Bianca won’t come out of her puddle to join us.

I spent much of the day doing chores, cooking, and knitting. I made a couple of plarn discoveries. I need a crochet hook to help me pick up stitches along the edges when I start a new segment. Also, “throwing,” or English knitting is easier than Continental knitting when your yarn is plastic.

I haven’t finished the first ball of plarn yet, but it’s getting bigger. The plarn maker just randomly put in different colored bags, so it’s coming out quite random.

I still don’t know what this is. I may make it sorta big and use it as a camping mat.

My hands are holding up okay (weaving is tempting me nonetheless) but I’m still going to alternate with my Temperature Blanket, which is easier on my fingers. Speaking of which, we made it through June without any 100° days! But they’re coming.

And the air conditioning upstairs needs fixing!

Anyway, the day ended with a nice meal “cooked” by me (frozen lasagna and salad) and lots of time in the swimming pool with our camping buddies Mike and Martha. I’m glad the pool is still working. Long story behind that. and I’m glad for friends you can talk to about pretty much everything. We’re lucky!

Wandering with Visitors

It’s always fun to show off where you live to visitors, and there’s so much to show off these days! So today I took my intrepid visiting friends on a walking/driving tour of our small town. I also got to visit some places I wanted to go!

After a peaceful morning, we headed to the bakery for what I guess was brunch. We sat up in the mezzanine to watch the “action” around the square, of which there was none. But that’s okay.

Next we headed to the antique shop where I got to chat with the folks there while Patty found a celluloid thimble to buy. In ZX I got some wine and David got an eclipse shirt, while Patty found a really cute top. They enjoyed all the art and memorabilia We peeked in the windows of the Venue to see the work our family members helped with.

I got Sherrie Jo and Patty to pose in front of the restored signage.

We wandered to the old jail, which really is an impressive building. I forget how cool it is!

Both the architecture and the grounds are quite beautiful. It’s very well kept.

Of course we visited the Chamber of Commerce, where everyone was friendly. At this point I’m sure the visitors must have thought I knew everyone in town, which was further confirmed when we went in the Bling Box. I got my yearly pair of Corky’s flip flops.

Finally we hit the museums. I hadn’t seen the railroad museum since it moved. They did such a great job on rebuilding the train layouts. The ceiling is a sky, too. I need to go back and read more about the local railroads.

Cameron and its environs. Volunteers have done amazing work.

Finally we went into the local history museum, which is a lot more fun now. We identified a strange object that looked like a bulldog holding a tuning fork as an old curling iron, and next figured out what the item pictured below is.

It was warming up, so we took a drive around town to see the sights. I got to see Anita’s house with its new paint job. It looks sharp! I’ll have to get a photo. We got food for dinner and headed home.

There I did enjoy the finished roof on the tack room. It looks quite snazzy now. I also have Apache pain meds and his normal meds. He was walking, but not yet normally. So it’s Plan B for the show tomorrow.

We had hot tub time, a fun dinner and lots of conversation through the afternoon and evening. Lee showed Patty lots about bookbinding, while all us women crafted (Sherrie Jo was embroidering pillow cases, Patty was crocheting a rug, and I finished another row on the 2024 temperature blanket.

After dinner we fired up the fire pit, which was quite beautiful. So was the sunset.

The only things that marred the evening were a big ole dog fight (in which Carlton and Harvey both got owies) and Apache breaking out of the dry lot into the small paddock. There he proceeded to call to the other horses and race back and forth along the fence line. Hmm. Racing. I guess the pain meds kicked in. He’s staying home tomorrow anyway.

I sure enjoyed having guests and hope they make it to their eclipse destinations safely. Who’s next to visit?

A Weekend for Me

This entire weekend I did stuff I wanted to do, when I wanted to. Now, that’s relaxing! Even sweeping the chicken house and getting rid of feed bags was done on MY time. I didn’t breathe poop, by the way. Lesson learned.

I do have a funny horse story. I was out in the pasture heading to bring in Apache, who still likes to play hard to get. I know I’m sending off good vibes, because every other horse comes right to me. And that’s what was funny. Fiona had already latched on to my side as I walked to Apache. Suddenly I heard thundering hooves, then in a puff of dust, Drew’s head appeared directly beside my face. He was just SURE I was looking for him and he was concerned he was late, because he had to pee. Obviously I have no trouble catching Drew. Eventually I once again had to maneuver around three horses and a donkey who were dying for me to take them off to be groomed.

They are all right there. Happy to see me.

Now, once Apache decides he’s ready, he is no trouble at all, and seems to enjoy walking around, being groomed, and riding. He just wants to be the one to decide it’s time to go do stuff.

I’m working on letting Suna be the boss.

He’s so much fun, though. I’m not complaining at all. We have had many years to develop this relationship, so we’ll keep working and I’ll enjoy the ride, literally.

I got a bath, so I could roll and get all dirty again five minutes after this picture was taken.

The rest of today, like yesterday, was spent knitting, floating in the pool, napping, and hanging out. Lee, Anita, and I even got to go out for dinner! My sour cream enchiladas were great, plus they didn’t mess with the temporary crown I need to keep in until Friday.

Naturally, ha ha, I took some nature pictures. This little garden spider got quite a catch!

The aviary kept me all excited again today, though. We got to watch the wren feed her brood and enjoy all those fledgling barn swallows darting and swooping along with their parents. They seemed pretty proud of themselves to be able to sit on the light fixtures.

And to top it all off, there were more genuine clouds in the sky tonight (there were some yesterday, too, but no rain).

That led to an amazing moonrise and sunset. The moon was pretty such a short time. I’m glad I was taking my time and enjoying everything that came along tonight and the rest of the weekend.

It may be time for a new Facebook cover photo.

I hope you have a good week and that the weekend refreshed and renewed you, even a little. I certainly needed some time to reflect and treat myself kindly after beating myself up a bit last week!

I felt like the heron. At home in my place.

Too Much Contemplation, Maybe

I didn’t write a blog yesterday, because as hard as I tried to distract myself, I just pondered and pondered the highs and lows of life. It started because the morning was spent at the funeral service for a friend’s husband, who died at 86. It was a surprise to all, since he’d planned to do stuff that day and was also planning to live to be 100.

Not a native plant here, but I still love the red yucca.

I’m glad so many members of our extended community were there to support my friend, because it’s always hard when your life’s story takes a hard turn into a new direction. And that’s what got me thinking of how many others I know who’ve recently lost their partners and how long it takes to get back into a groove again while dealing with a big hole in their lives.

Life is short, but new life is all around. Look, a skipper caterpillar is emerging!

It seems to me that sometimes it’s hard for folks to go out and have fun again. I know many are helped by sharing memories and talking about how much the departed loved one would love to see them doing well. As the minister hinted at the funeral, you’ve not really lost your partner, just physically separated. I could see how the Christian beliefs of my friend and her family were comforting in that respect.

I’m comforted by my experiences that thanks to memories, I feel the presence of my loved ones, like my dad, especially. I always find myself “telling” him things.

Dad also liked moss roses and disliked annoying nutsedge.

Anyway, to take my mind our of thinking about how lives change suddenly, I convinced Lee to take me to lunch at a fun place we’d never eaten at before, the Oscar Store, which is the only thing in Oscar, a settlement just outside of Temple, Texas. We drive by it often, because it’s on our favorite shortcut to Tractor Supply and Lowe’s.

It’s really cute inside and outside of the restaurant, and the food is great. I had liver and onions with fantastic lima beans and fried okra. Yes, lima beans. They were in a yummy sauce. I was full well past dinner time from that! Lee had a beautiful cheeseburger.

After the fine lunch we went to look at outdoor furniture at Lowe’s, because we need stuff that’s heavier and won’t blow into the pool repeatedly. The stuff we replace can go on the back porch at the Red House, since we don’t have stairs there yet.

So, that helped. But, I still sorta dwelt on things the whole day. What else helped was that I spent much of my pondering time listening to birds, of which I keep identifying more and more. Plus, I got to plant the flowers I showed you above. I finally found portulaca or moss roses so I could plant them by the pool.

These will grow and grow, blooming until there’s a hard frost.

That overheated me like crazy, so I had to jump in the pool, even though it has a lot of grass in it from the mower going the wrong way by it, and there were also flying ants. Yuck. But the water was refreshing!

Time with the horses also helped, of course, They are doing darned well, and yesterday I even figured out that Apache had to pee and moved off his kidneys for ease of pee. He was full of opinions and also informed me when it was time to stop riding. He makes me laugh. Drew is way more cooperative, though he was really muddy this morning!

The rest of the weekend is for relaxing. I bought a whole bunch of stuff to make sandwiches for Sunday Dinner. The things I’ll do so I don’t have to cook…the sandwich ingredients probably cost more than making something to cook.

Nothing’s wrong with pondering your and your loved ones’ mortality occasionally. It helps you remember to treasure every single day.

Why I’m Thankful for the Pool

Maybe you’ve been reading this blog long enough to remember how I decided I wanted a swimming pool last year. I called it the Pool of Dreams.

Pool of Dreams today—notice the guard garden spider (a good one that eats black widows)

I think some people thought I wouldn’t use the pool. After all, I’ve never been much of a swimmer. I don’t blame anyone who thought this. But while I don’t swim much, I do love water and being outside, especially here.

Things you see from the pool include Vlassic.

I’ve really loved spending time in the pool, and am there nearly every day. The salty water is very soothing (Lee says it’s great for his eyes). I float in my floating device and practice deep breathing. The breeze cools me then the sun soothes me. Then I start observing.

I see so many birds, especially right now when the herons and egrets are chowing down on the little catfish in the now-shallow ponds. Swallows fly over me and the English sparrow family hang out in their messy nest.

When they took off, it was a big whoosh!

I truly enjoy the time to myself. And the pool lets me be outdoors even in this historic heat. I’d be stuck inside other than when I sweat myself silly taking care of the horses, if it weren’t for the pool.

I’m very grateful to my spouse and family members who helped get this dang pool built.

Wait, I forgot my creature of the day! Here’s a beelzebub bee eater with its prey. What a scary fly!

Pool of Dreams or Nightmares?

Hey, do you remember that swimming pool we had built? The beautiful one with the hot tub and nice patio? Yeah. I remember it, too. We called it the Pool of Dreams, but lately it had been turning into a nightmare.

We had been following the instructions the pool company gave us, which were minimal, to say it kindly. And our questions and phone calls had gone unanswered. Lee had been spending hours and hours trying to get this green stuff out of the pool, which we thought must be pollen, because it wasn’t sticking. But that’s not all. Here’s what else was going on with the Pool of Nightmares:

The remote control stopped letting us choose fun colors for the lights. Only by chance did I figure out a way to cycle through a few of the possible colors.
The pool would not turn on spa mode and spa heat mode together. You had to go over to the unit, where snakes live, to manually turn on the spa heater. Then, you had to check every hour or so to make sure it hadn’t switched to pool heat mode, which wastes my precious propane and only heats to 80 degrees. That was getting tedious.
We had no idea what chemicals to put in it, because adding salt wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. We finally got a clue when Lee found an owner’s manual to the unit online, which explained that the reason the pool beeped occasionally (the pool company guy had said “it just does that”) was because the salt cell wasn’t hooked up.
The salt cell wasn’t hooked up. They simply had not done it. That could explain a lot.
We had no idea what chemicals to add, because the pool dude just said to look at the readout on a strip and add the right chemicals. Okay, what are those exactly?
The spa jets would not stay in. So, half the spa outlets just spewed forth water in a big gush, rather than going around and around and being therapeutic. I was most annoyed.

As of last week, no one had returned our phone calls. So, Kathleen called around and found a pool maintenance person and asked him to come in. He explained to her that there was a chlorine-resistant algae going around, but hinted there may be other issues.

Pool guy at work. Note that one of our plants is blooming.

Yesterday, the pool dude showed up. Since I wasn’t there, I don’t know all the details, but suffice to say that he put in the right chemicals to re-balance the pool and get it under control. He will be returning weekly to do maintenance. This will make Lee’s life so much easier, since he was not happy to be having to go out and do pool stuff every day, even with Mr. Robotto going around and getting stuff out.

Look at that. The pool is blue, and all the algae that was on the beach area is gone. We are sure grateful Kathleen called for help!

Plus, finally someone called back about the pool from the company who sold it to us. They had gone radio silent since we made our last payment, to the point where we thought they must have gone out of business or something, until I checked their Facebook page, and saw that it was still posting things.

I am told that the actual owner of the company will be at the ranch on Monday. I’m sorta glad Lee isn’t there to give them a piece of his mind, but I am pretty sure he will get a piece of the other male resident of our family compound, instead. That may help turn the nightmare back into a dream.

I hope it does, because we have been enjoying the pool a lot, and it’s going to be hot, hot, hot in Texas next week.

Where we are, it’s still pretty pleasant. Lee and I got some really cool rocking hammock chairs and have been sitting on the balcony watching birds, planes, helicopters and more.

I’ve seen little wildlife, other than a cannonball jellyfish and some amorous pigeons.

A nice young man was trying to get it back into the sea.

But we did get to enjoy some kind of aerial show featuring a plane, some red skydiving stuff, and some parachutes in formation. Whatever it was, I enjoyed it. And that’s it. Other than getting groceries, we stayed put and relaxed. That is a good thing, far as I’m concerned.

And kindness keeps happening. I bought myself some Mother’s Day flowers, knowing that’s the only way I’m going to get any, and the cashier couldn’t find the code to ring it up, so she whispered, “Happy Mother’s Day.” The thing is, I realize that I’m so unused to seeing people be nice to strangers that I get all teary-eyed when it happens. That’s sorta sad.

Happy Mother’s Day (US) to all who are mothers or who have mothered others, human, animal, or whatever.

At least here at the ole resort, everyone’s friendly and nice. A guy took my luggage cart downstairs for me, just to be nice! I’ve met a lot of nice people at the pool bar. Cute little kids keep saying hi. I’m keeping track of these little things, to counter all the negativity I see otherwise.

Rain, and Other Things That Pass for Excitement around Here

You know when we are bordering on yet another drought around here when the grass starts to crunch under your feet when you walk across the fields. In the past week or so, even our relatively green pastures had started to get crunchy. Other parts of the state have it a lot worse (not to mention other parts of the US. But we here in scenic Milam County care about the Hermits’ Rest microclimate the most! Because of that, I was extra happy to hear drops falling onto the roof this morning.

I went out to feed the chickens (and would have fed Drew, but he ignored me) this morning and saw we’d gotten two tenths of an inch. Even that much made Lee happy. I was really hoping for more, since we hadn’t even gotten any puddles yet. I watched the forecast and tracked clouds on the radar. More was coming.

April is a kind of weird month here. Sometimes we get hardly any rain and sometimes it’s a lot. This year has been on the scant side.

Today’s rain will make this month no longer the least rain since Lee has been measuring (and yes, the dates go right to left – thanks to Lee for the graphic).

Today has gone well, though listening to the steady rain makes me a little woozy. We are getting the good kind of rain, with no tornadoes, hail (far as I can tell), or other severe stuff. Just a nice rain that has finally filled up Lee’s “pond” and given the new gutters a workout. The fact that it’s up to a half inch is exciting for us!

Other things that pass for exciting are small. For example, I’ve had a pot that appeared to be a pot of dirt sitting on my porch for going on two months. I was beginning to think that Lowe’s had sold me a pot of dirt rather than some bulbs in dirt. At last, things have poked up and someday there will be calla lilies and caladiums in there.

At last, life appears. I am proud of myself for not digging in there and checking to see if anything was growing.

My nails also are exciting this week. I had been doing them in boring ways while some problem nails grew out, but this week I layered flowers over a nice turquoise color and got something that really goes well with my overly abundant rings. By the way, I am using the ColorStreet stuff. I find it works very well for me and lasts about ten days. I can even do nail repairs and it helps keep them looking fine. (I’m actually going to break down and do an MLM party for this stuff, just because some friends want to get some of the colors, and I could use some freebies.) I don’t like it (or anything) enough to sell it, but I can help some other woman make money, even though I am not a fan of MLM “small businesses” in general (here’s where I ranted about that once). The particular sales person I am using right now actually is a good marketer and has nail tips even I, a person who’s been doing her nails since 9th grade, didn’t know.

And that’s it for my blissfully rainy day. Oh, wait, one more thing. I got us more of the pool floats that we like so much. I call it my yacht. Kathleen has a much bigger yacht, but it likes to blow away. One of the man-folk in the family actually asked if I could get a bigger one for him, so I got one in XL. When they arrived I got a chuckle out of the stereotypical bathing-suit lady in the regular one and manly man in the XL (though he is not an XL man, in my opinion). At least they are racially ambiguous; they could be mixed, white, black, Latinx, South Asian, Middle Eastern, or maybe even Pacific Islander. That’s rather good. My favorite part of the packaging, though, is where they have one of those square things to scan. I found the fact that “scan me” is “scanne-moi” in French is pretty funny.

Like I said, it doesn’t take much to pass for excitement around here, and with all the other stuff going on, anything that brings a laugh is good with me.