walking – The Hermits' Rest

A Visit to the Local Ghost Town

It’s been a long time since I wrote about the Walker’s Creek community, which is nominally where we live (or Silver City, another town that’s gone). On today’s weekend walk, I decided to investigate what’s left of the community.

Definitely a scenic walk, including the yellow Gaillardia.

Last week I went to the cemetery, so I’ll just show you the entrance. There are older cemeteries in the area, but here’s where all those Hightower and Laywell ancestors are. I mostly enjoy the ancient oaks and birds.

As I’ve mentioned, the cemetery is still in use.

I climbed up the hill to get to the historical area, stopping to enjoy some gorgeous Pitcher’s Leatherflowers. I declare them to be my favorite wildflowers (sorry milkvine).

I found many birds, including lots of raptors. There was even a Bald Eagle, which usually don’t stray so far from the Alcoa lake. I was happy a Swainson’s Hawk flew over, too.

This is my only bird photo. It’s exciting though, because it’s a Painted Bunting NOT hiding in a tree. How do I know that? It was vigorously singing the Painted Bunting song.

I decided to see if there were any fascinating plants at the site of the old Walker’s Creek Church. I think that was also the school site?

I saw the remains of many of the oaks originally planted by early English-speaking settlers. The trees have not handled recent drought years, plus they’re old.

I found a dragonfly, some wildflowers, and the usual trees for around here, cedar elms and hackberry trees. The most unique feature was all the Inca Doves that seem to only live on the top of this hill. They don’t come past the creek to my house. Here’s a sample of what I saw. I’ll spare you yet another dead armadillo.

Female common whitetail *Plathemis lydia*

That wasn’t too exciting, but I enjoyed thinking about the people who settled on this hill so long ago. I’m glad we still have some friendly folks in the community, even short-timers like us and “the dog lady” (Vicki, who raises amazing Shetland sheep dogs).

Alfred says he’d be a sheep dog if we’d get him some sheep. Until then, he’ll just chew his “cigar.”

I’ll have more excitement for you in the morning.

This is the purple box. Everyone notices it. Says it’s an insect trap. Ok.

I Do Love Me a Good Woods

Nothing earth-shattering today, just a wonderful, restful, respite from anything negative. I wish we could all have such a day occasionally, where we do our favorite things at a leisurely pace.

Nothing better than an undisturbed woods.

I’d been looking forward to going back to the Prayer Trail at the nearby Presbyterian church since I left Hilton Head Island last time. It’s just the most tranquil, green, and quiet oasis imaginable, right off a busy road.

The old-growth woods embrace you as you walk the trail, and you’re immersed in bird song, squirrel chatter, and frog croaks. There were mosquitoes, so it wasn’t perfect, but wow, the warbling warblers and trilling vireos put on a show! It was hard to leave.

Leaving was made much easier when I realized I hadn’t been on the path that is next to the church. I guess I didn’t realize it went through. Ah, but it does, following a ditch or canal all the way to the next main road. There are cypress trees and many other hardwoods, like sweet gum and sand oak.

I even got to meet a guide dog in training, who was off work, so I could pet her. I went on and realized I now have a walk I can take from my condo that has woods and birds the whole way. If I don’t have other plans, this route awaits! There is always lots to see.

After doing some Master Naturalist work and checking out the new Netflix show, The Residence, which features a detective who’s a birder, I walked on the beach.

More fun dogs entertained me with their joy at being near sand and water, and dozens of Brown Pelicans sedately flew over, then went to work diving for fish. I had some good quiet beach time, but also I found it fun to watch teens playing games and laughing.

Maybe tomorrow will be more exciting. I’m going right instead of left when I leave the condo! Ooh!

I Love to Walk, but

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

Yes. Walking is my favorite exercise. That’s clear to anyone who reads this little blog. Second is horseback riding. You get exercise and don’t even notice, because your brain is so engaged.

I get itchy if I don’t get my walking in. That became very obvious when I had Covid and in the weeks afterwards when my stamina left. However, today I did a LOT of sitting, since this was the only day of the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Meeting when I didn’t have any field sessions. I walked around the hotel as fast as I could and got out for a ten-minute walk between sessions. Better than nothing, though, and it helped me make my move goal.

The oak tree I found in the parking lot is not native. It’s a Mexican white oak.

Let me say this; it was worth sitting around all day. I learned so much that I’ll use in the future today! This has really been a great conference, which I’m glad for since I’ve had to miss another conference with many friends.

Two of the sessions I attended were about interpretation. My mom would be pleased, since she always thought I was going to school to be an interpreter (I was a linguistics major). Note that the sessions were about interpretation of nature or historical locations. I want to be better at leading nature and bird walks at our new bird sanctuary.

Levels of experience you can help people achieve.

I have good ideas for stories I can tell to facilitate learning in different audiences.

Two other sessions I attended were about creatures I’m fond of, spiders and flies. Both were by the same woman, a nature writer whose stuff I’m familiar with from the Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, Sheryl Smith-Rodgers. She’s entertaining, though her presentations are relentlessly paced. I could have used more depth.

I especially liked some of her videos, many of which she took herself. There was one on a peacock spider that was extra cute, and one extreme closeup video of a mosquito (which is a fly) getting blood out of someone. It was both fascinating and nauseating.

The other thing I learned was how to tell a male from a female fly. Females have a gap between their compound eyes.

I wish I had videos of these presentations so I could look at the pictures more.

Another session I learned a lot from was on what lives in the aquifer under San Marcos. They get samples of what comes up from an old artesian well and analyze them.

I knew vaguely that there were blind cave salamanders, but, wow, there are all sorts of living things under the water in the limestone. It ranges from shrimp to snails to relatives of pill bugs. They’re all blind and colorless.

I think my brain got full today. I’m glad I could just enjoy dinner with nice folks, including my chapter friend Linda Jo. They gave out many, many awards, and I got to stand up for hitting 1,000 volunteer hours last year. Of course, that was dwarfed by two guys who hit 30,000 hours. Linda Jo and I think we started too late to get to that one. Also, we have other things in our lives.

Our program got an international award, though, and our bat monitoring program was voted the best master naturalist program in the US. Impressed.

I’ve had a darned good time even if I didn’t get much exercise today. I do look forward to heading home tomorrow to find out how the animals and people are holding up.

Look! Clouds! Maybe someday soon it will rain.

Birds, Birds, Birds

Today of course I was up extra early, since I’m two hours ahead in my body. So I took off a walked through the pretty neighborhood adjacent to the resort. There is also a pretty golf course here.

This combination meant for a lot of birds. I couldn’t have had more bird fun if I tried. There were six new ones, many of which I saw, too. So, here are my new birds so far. Note how many are described as “dull.” But some are pretty spectacular!

But the highlight was this: I heard a flock of House Finches screeching and went to check it out.

I saw what was making the fuss. It was a spectacular Cooper’s Hawk noshing away on a finch. It was so preoccupied that it let me get decent photos of it. I had a great time watching it. Wow!

I also got photos of other birds and beasts today. I’ll just dump them here. Sadly, the rodent I saw hid too fast.

The other thing I enjoyed were plants. The neighborhood I walked through had beautiful xeriscaped yards with all kinds of native and other plants suited to this climate. Combined with excellent weeds, I had a lot to look at (sorry if you already saw this on Facebook but I wanted to share with others). I can’t ID them all.

Sorry to once again not ID, but I have to go to bed early to get up and work. Well, I’ll have a lot of time in the evenings to do stuff.

We did have a nice brunch and get some groceries. Driving all around Sedona was confusing. Too many roundabouts and New Age shops. I mean, I’m new agey, but there are so many places to get your aura photographed.

I didn’t get any city pictures due to our dirty windshield. But here’s the fancy CVS pharmacy.

The views, though, are spectacular. I can’t wait to go hike.

Walking Wherever I Am

How often do you walk or run?

Hmm, I’m assuming they mean walking or running for exercise, because those of us who are able to walk do it most days. Movement is life. If I couldn’t walk, I’d do something to get around, depending on my ability.

This palo verde is moving, so it’s alive.

As for exercise, I don’t run other than to chase an animal or the postal carrier. I’ve tried running as my exercise but I don’t like it. It hurts my knees.

Maybe I’m slow as this guy, but I don’t mind.

Walking doesn’t hurt me, other than the ball of my right foot after a couple of mikes. You can also see your surroundings better when you walk, which I like.

Today I saw a climbing milkvine and an assassin bug.

I’ve walked most days for many years. When I walk to build fitness, I go pretty darned fast. I may walk faster than I jog. I have to slow down for others.

Lee doesn’t walk very fast, but he doesn’t stop as often as I do.

For many years I’ve walked with dogs. They mess up my goals with all that sniffing, peeing, and pooping, but you neat more people walking dogs. Anita meets SO many people walking Pickle. What a way to make friends.

Now, walking in nature is my favorite. You may have noticed that if you’ve read more than a few of my posts. The problem with that kind of walking is that I stop so often. I can’t call my hobby hiking, because I don’t exactly hike, I meander. I pause, I admire, I get curious. That’s my idea of a good time.

I’m glad I got to walk with Lee in the Bamberger Nature Park in northwest San Antonio. It must be beautiful there in the spring, but I managed to find interesting plants even after the dry summer.

The weather was bright and warm, but there was a nice breeze. I had fun. So did my spouse, because I didn’t walk TOO far. I was overdressed. Enjoy the scenery.

I think you can tell I was having fun.

Sunset and Dining in the Rockies

I ended up spending the entire day yesterday with my patient friend, Cathy. I crammed a week’s worth of fun into that one day! I also crammed more than a week’s worth of exercise points in, but I feel absolutely fine in the leg department today, so my hiking boots must have done their job.

Fire on the mountain, but not a wildfire.

We left off in yesterday’s post after lunch. We went to check out the outlet mall, because Cathy hinted that it doesn’t suck. And that’s right, it doesn’t. The first place we went was not an outlet store, but a little jewel of a co-op gallery of art by local artisans. There was beautiful mosaic art and a lot of photographs, some by a photographer Cathy really likes.

Photo taken right near Cathy’s house. It was hard to photograph, because it’s shiny.

Imagine her happiness to find out that Stephen Johnson was working in the store that day! She found out he lives in her neighborhood, and they shared stories of seeing moose and other wildlife nearby. I enjoyed his stories very much and got some images of his photos. This is my favorite, partly because of the story of the pregnant cow moose, who he sees every year with her babies.

That was fun, as was finding a few items at the Columbia outlet that may help me ride Apache more in the winter. I got a head covering thing that would fit under my helmet, and a warm reflective shirt. We’ll see!

Then we adventured out to find some cool green hiking boots Cathy wanted to get from Facebook Marketplace. She loves Facebook marketplace. I have to say they are pretty darned cool boots.

Ignore Chalkdust, the extremely lovely husky/shepherd mix, and look at the shoes.

After heading back to my house to change and get my knitting, we went back to Cathy’s. I feel bad for how many times I caused her to drive back and forth from Dillon to Breckenridge! She baked some brownies and I knitted, then we went for a sunset walk, which she does most days. You know, I hadn’t walked enough yet. Cathy needed to, because as she admits, she is a jock.

It got colder and colder as we walked, but it was fine. We got to see some clouds and sun and mountains, which made it worth it. And, oh yes, I got to look at all the houses in the neighborhood, which are rustic and have interesting garage doors and other exterior details. Of course, I peeked inside when I could, too. There were some fine light fixtures.

Pre-sunset views of the Continental Divide.

When we got back, there was a special treat! Cathy’s friend, Sarah, had invited us to have a girls’ night fajita dinner. I was happy, because I’d enjoyed talking to her earlier, plus I would get to meet two more women. So, off we went.

This is Violet, a husky. I took pictures of the dogs, not the people.

Everyone had fun getting to know each other and eating. Sara’s new neighbor across the street was really subtle in her humor, so I enjoyed her a lot. And the other guest is an artist and was making a beautiful butterfly installation for the place where she works in Breck.

I spent a great deal of time asking Sara where all her art and textiles came from. Her mother had a business selling Native American jewelry, so she had traded for some nice stuff, plus she had Peruvian tapestries, too. Drool.

It turns out Sarah teaches Pysanky eggs at the art center, so I got to see some of them. I would love to learn that technique to do with some of my eggs. Thank goodness Cathy took a picture, to prove there were people at dinner.

I’m asking endless questions about the eggs. They are so intricate.

In addition to meeting so many fascinating women today, I believe I had my biggest exercise day since back when I’d hike with my older son on holidays. I still can’t believe I feel so good…well, other than my digestion telling me I ate too much rich food. Today may be a recovery day, though I intend to get in the right amount of walking in (after football).

My exercise goal is 30 minutes, and I have a hard time getting it at home. Not here. Thanks, altitude!

Seen on a Walk: Ducks, Crawfish, Murmurations

Taking a walk in nature is good for your mood, so I have been out walking today. First I walked around our stream, looking for live crawfish, until it rained. Then, after the sun came out, I walked down the road to the cemetery and back, just to see what’s out there.

I really enjoyed looking at the water around our house. It’s so pretty.

I found no living crawfish, but saw many holes and castles (mud they leave while digging holes). I also found mushrooms, raccoon poop and general beauty.

I still can’t find where the front spring is, but it’s still flowing away. I made a movie.

I was in a hurry, so I forgot to turn the camera. But it’s pretty.

After the rain, it was so beautiful out! I wish the weather was always like this. It isn’t hot or cold. Birds are loving it, too.

Yesterday I’d seen some ducks behind the house, but the dogs sent them away before I could ID them. I was irritated, but hoped they’d stay. Sure enough, I was able to see them through the binoculars this morning. They were hooded mergansers! Fancy!

I really wanted a photo, though. I was excited to see them in the pond by the road on my walk. Of course, they took off. But, ha! I had the phone camera on burst mode! I got them flying!

Then, I heard a noise. It was the unmistakable sound of starlings. We have large flocks of this non-native bird around here. I knew they’d take off soon, so I waited a minute. Sure enough, they broke into two groups. It’s fun to watch.

It doesn’t take much to entertain me, does it? I just wish I had someone to walk with. I’d probably feel like going farther with a co-walker!

Chickens Are Guaranteed to Make You Laugh

I wrote this last night, so adjust your mental imagery accordingly.

Sure, sometimes I get sad about losing chickens, but mostly they bring me so much joy. When I see good ole Bertie and Gertie running to see me, any hint of a foul (fowl?) mood I’m in evaporates.

Mom’s home! Maybe she has food! Or shoelaces!

They just want to be where I am. The others are a bit more independent. Today I found all of them taking dirt baths in the asparagus bed (no photos).

This shoelace is too short and doesn’t sparkle. Hmph.

Sometimes I just sit in the grass and talk to Bertie and feed her leaves. Ginger used to do that, too. and Fancy Pants. Sniff. But I still have Bertie Lee!

I’m such a good listener. But I’m annoyed you messed up my nest in the garage.

I do have to be careful with the phone/camera, though, because it’s also shiny, and thus peck-worthy.

The other thing I’ve been most enjoying is Bruce as he looks for high objects to crow from. Here he is in the garage crowing from the workbench.

Today he wanted to be king of the welding equipment.

Buttercup was really interested in what Bruce was doing.

I’d like to be queen of the welding stuff.

Sadly, there can only be one monarch at a time.

Bruce deposed Buttercup before she even gained a foothold.

I really needed a day to just enjoy the life around me and not have a huge to-do list. It helped a lot with matters that weigh on my mind. I even escaped the dogs and took a nice long walk.

Look at those legs! There’s definitely a whole lot of nothing out here.

From my walk, I determined that Michelob Lite Extra is by far the favorite beer of litterers, followed by Bud Light and Lone Star. and Duncan Hines is the preferred cake mix to strew on the roadside (yes, 3 boxes)! It’s time to clean up again, I guess.

There are three Eastern bluebirds on the fence.

I had to end on a happier note!

I hope you have a Bertie equivalent to cheer you up. Or, you can borrow Bertie.

Pond-ering

Since it’s rained like crazy and the rivers are still rising, I thought it would be a good time to check out our pond, the arroyo, and the riparian areas at the front of our property.

A meadow pink for my newfound love of the color.

Also, since it’s time for the second wave of wildflowers, I’d check them out, too. I’m always happy when these pink beauties are shining forth, so that was a good start!

I’m so glad they didn’t get all of these in the hay!

The dogs came along and enjoyed their own “pond” made by Lee’s unfinished drainage area.

Continue reading “Pond-ering”

Little Wonders

It’s a beautiful day today, so I’ve done a bit of wandering around. I’m always surprised at the beauty I see, just walking around the ranch.

Today the dogs and I checked out the arroyo, and they had a lot of fun sniffing and stomping, as usual.

That is a BIG hole. Glad I know where it is, so I won’t step on it.

I was surprised to see just how big the armadillo’s hole has gotten. Every time I walk by there’s more dirt outside it. That is one busy dillo.

You can’t really see as much orange as I saw in person, but hey, these will be a lot of delicous berries!

The trees and bushes are all budding out, and sometimes the color really surprises me. The dewberries are all red and yellow, and look almost autumnal!

There are also many, many birds out today, including a family of mockingbirds who would really like to be left alone. They yelled and yelled at me for messing around in “their” tree, trying to get a picture of some raccoon poop. I think the raccoon may hang out in the tree, too.

But the best!

The best nature sight came slightly off the ranch, on our county road. I saw something white as I was driving into town this morning, so when I came back, I parked to check things out. There, in the middle of a field, were dozens of white irises. They were so pretty.

The irises are right in the center of this picture.

I wish I could have gotten closer, but you know, snakes. My guess is that there was once a house where the overgrown trees and such are now. There is still a huge oak that may have been planted by someone. And, next door, there are a lot of the same flowers planted around a tree. Maybe they dug some of the ones in the field up.

Here you can see the flowers and the big tree. And an annoying post.

I’ll just have to ask the people who live there one day!