time – The Hermits' Rest

I didn’t have an easy morning this morning, even though there sure was a cool sunrise. I wish I could have gone out and gotten a better photo, but here it is through the upstairs window.

There was a thick cloud that didn’t totally block the sun.

It’s a time of year that is hard for many of us, with tomorrow’s anniversary of the terrorist attacks, and that isn’t helping much either. But, when you’re feeling your trauma ramping up, feel trapped, are weary of being second guessed, or have to deal with the consequences of other people’s actions, you do have options. One of them is to leave.

Familiar signs of approaching autumn: snow on the prairie, wild morning glories, and balloon vines (all hiding behind that dang Johnson grass)

So, this morning, after I did all I could do to be useful, I took a nice walk. Looking around at the ranch and its life made it so much easier to put things into the perspective of life going on as best as it can, year by year.

This is the dry season, so Walker’s Creek is no longer flowing. It’s a series of puddles.

The cows next door are starting to calve, as they do every year around this time. It’s reassuring to see the same cows in the field, still providing new babies for their ranchers.

Mature mamas getting ready to do their job: make more beef.

Even while I was feeling reassured by the repeated patterns and rhythms of the year, I was finding new things. For example, I don’t think I realized before that the giant cane (Arundo donax) smelled good when it was blooming. I guess it has something going for it, after all!

Still, it’s one annoying nonnative and invasive plant!

It was cooler this morning, too, which really makes me hopeful for the return of more bearable horse-riding weather. And as always, I found beauty in the little things, once I slowed down to look. Check out the patterns the large puddles make when they dry up!

There are cracks in the dirt everywhere, actually.

More little things included the small flowers in the snow on the prairie plants, and the dozens of dusky skipper butterflies making the most out of the morning glories. They were everywhere!

After enjoying the life around me, and reminding myself that whatever is happening now is temporary, I felt a lot better and was able to come back and get work and meetings done. Thanks again to the healing properties of the Hermits’ Rest. The land and its residents are always here for me. And I didn’t have to get in the car and go for a long drive!

Hay ready to harvest. Time’s marching on, and every day brings new things to see, even in old familiar places.

I really like to know what time it is. I was monitoring myself in the background today and realized how often I check the time. In fact, I almost panicked when the time wasn’t on my arm during a meeting, when I couldn’t see the time on the computer screen. My watch was charging. The horror.

At all times, I know the date, the time, how close I am to making my exercise goals, and can start an exercise event. Complications.

I have many, many ways to tell time when I’m here at the office. Each computer screen tells me the time, though it’s tiny and is always betting blocked by my phone, a beverage, or another object..

My phone tells me the time in two places at once when my hot spot is running, so I’ll have a digital and an analog option. (By the way, I didn’t realize the clock icon on my phone actually told the correct time for an embarrassingly long number of months after I got an iPhone.)

I prefer analog clocks. I highly dislike military time, and I get annoyed when Lee sets appliances to tell me it’s 15:41. I do know that time that is, but I always have to pause to calculate. I want my time awareness to be instant.

Time is relative, after all. I read that somewhere.

Why do I care? I really don’t, unless I’m at work (paid or volunteer) and have to Zoom, or have to meet to feed the horses. I eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired, and go and return from work when it seems like a good time. Besides, time seems to be one of those things we humans, with our puny brains, really don’t understand completely. It could be FAKE NEWS for all I know.

Thus, it should come as no surprise to you that my new office’s lack of a clock bothered me. I did NOT like the Coca-Cola clock in the old office, since it didn’t have birds or flowers on it (as we know, I like to have a theme). I was pretty darned thrilled to find this item in the Grommet website. It had birds! It was made of recycled material! It came in the right color!

And now, I can look up from my screen and see the time. This also makes me focus on something more distant and may help with my eye strain.

It’s made out of layers of corrugated box material. Isn’t that cool? That made it easy to hang on this ancient brick. I decided not to get the pink one, since there is so much pink in this room that it almost feels too girly to be MY room.

I’m happy with my clock. Are you a clock person? A watch person? A phone-time person? None of the above? I wonder how other folks prefer to have their time told to them.

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