Suna K 🕊️💙 🇺🇦

Of My Two Keys: Turkey and Donkey Hey, not too much broke today, and though we have to wait for an air conditioning part, a convenient “cold” front came through, so sleeping won’t be too bad tonight. This leaves me with my observat…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/24/o...
Confession: I love my turkey.

Am I Paranoid or Are They Really Out to Get Me? I’m not doing myself any favors by watching the news. And it’s really not a good idea to listen to friends’ conspiracy theories. I try to avoid them but they sneak in, leading to nightmares like I …

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/23/a...
Your mind can do weird stuff to you.

Book Report: The Tree Collectors This is the book I needed right now. I needed sweet stories of people who love trees and are willing to go to great lengths to show that love. I also needed simple but beautiful watercolors of tree…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/21/b...
A beautiful and uplifting tree book

Looking for Beauty and Kindness I declared that today would be spent looking for beauty and kindness wherever I went. That started out early, since we wanted to leave for a camping weekend (at last) as early as possible. Beauty b…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/19/l... I found beauty and kindness, at least some.

Drama Averted Let’s talk about how great I am. No, that’s boring. Let’s talk about how my confidence has improved in my horsemanship. (Because there’s still some progress to be made in other areas.) One horse ac…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/18/d...
Horsing around is much calmer these days.

How Can You Cope in Today’s Troubled Times? There are some practices and “mind tricks“ I use to stay on a level key while the world of people, politics, and ethics changes to something almost unrecognizable. Note that I am not describing how…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/17/h...
I have hints! Let’s cope together!

Book Report: Coming Up Short Full disclosure: Robert Reich is the American I admire most. So it’s no surprise that I hoped to enjoy his new memoir, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America (2025). Yes. Punning is involved. He’s…

I read this book. It is significant. It is insightful. Than you, Robert Reich.

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/16/b...

Yes, More Niceness, Bird Edition I tried to write a post with some substance, but I’ve had a headache for two days and I couldn’t concentrate. So I’ll tell you what I enjoy lately. Bluebird – it’s blurry, so obviously by me.…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/15/y...
Today I write about sounds. That’s hard.

Cheerful Moments Ok! Cute things here we come! This morning I found where all the false foxgloves were hiding this year? And they were right next to a hawthorn tree with lots of fruit. Prairie False Foxgloves Agali…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/14/c...
Trying to live in the moment.

Mom, I Miss Her Today my mom would have been 103, so unlike many of my friends, I never expected her to be around for me at my age. But since she has been gone for 40 years, I’ve missed her longer than I had her. …

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/13/m...
I miss my mother’s love.

Just Birds This evening, Scissortail Flycatchers were dive-bombing into the pins and chattering away. They aren’t as graceful as the swallows, but it looks like they accomplished their mission. I never saw so…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/12/j...
Being an American is hard. Birds are good.

Here’s What I Think As if it matters, other than to me. I think Americans should stop using their beloved guns to kill other people. Here she goes again. No one is listening, says the greatest Egret ever. It’s been ma…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/10/h...
Blaming the other side is a waste of time. Just stop shooting.

Book Report: Braiding Sweetgrass People who know me well may find it odd that I only just finished reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015). After all, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, it’s a Suna kind of boo…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/08/b...
I finally read this!

Stay Tuned I just finished reading the wonderful book, Braiding Sweetgrass, which somehow I hadn’t managed to read yet. No doubt there was a good reason I didn’t read it when I bought it, but of course I love…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/06/s...
My book report will come later, but I have sorta amusing rambles today.

I Did It What did I do? I survived an overwhelming work week without losing my temper at anyone. I’m sure glad this week was only four work days! Flying away like these cattle egrets was very tempting! The …

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/05/i...
I got through the day!

Regressing to Childhood? Maybe. I was a bit too tired to do much after I finally finished a long work day, plus it was suddenly 100° outside after a break in the weather. Sunflower doesn’t care. Photo by Lee. So I sat in m…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/04/r...
I confess to enjoying coloring books.

Tonight I Chose Better Better what? Better evening beverage. I grabbed one of Kathleen’s special drinks last night and enjoyed it. But it turns out to have secretly been an “energy drink.” Thus I got less sleep last nigh…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/03/t...
No more energy drinks at night. Or ever.

Do I Have the Blues? It looks like I do. I made a drink from one of Kathleen’s little flavor packets and ended up with the blues: blue drink, nails, hair, and glasses. I will point out that I had a brown shirt (with a …

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/02/d...
How can you be blue when you have dogs, horses, and butterflies?

Noisy Times in Rural Texas What? You don’t know why it’s noisy here right now? Get out your Texas Parks and Wildlife hunting regulations booklet! Right there! Dove Season You see, it’s always a little blam-blammy on the firs…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/09/01/n...
It’s dove season. Horses don’t mind.

A Meteorological Respite Ah. Today we got beautiful rain, over 2” but I won’t measure until the morning. It was another great day to read on the porch! So cozy and dry I was sorry to miss my horse lesson but we’ve reschedu…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/31/a...
It rained. I played inside.

Three Thoughts I Had Are they all true truisms? You can decide. One. The best time to go to Costco on the weekend in a college town is during a home football game. Everyone but nerds, Goths, old hippies (us), and peopl…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/30/t...
There’s also a self critique

Well Dang Trying to stay on an even keel these days is a challenge, isn’t it? No need to name all the reasons why, because you know the ones that affect us all, and we each have our own personal stresses, gr…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/28/w...
Not a good day, mentally.

Fowl News: Good and Bad Not much has been going on in poultry land these days. Only Connie has been laying, so we have an ample supply of very large eggs for our cooking. There were two today. I also realized it’s her bir…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/27/f...
My turkey is a year old! But my oldest hen passed away.

Dog Day Thoughts I’m pretty wiped out from doing so much outside in the heat. I know Apache and I are both looking forward to the promised cold front. But today is National Dog Day in the US, so I’ll focus on the d…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/26/d...
Happy Dog Day

Converting a Coworker Today was lots of fun in the bird department, as lots of songbirds decided to let me see them. At last I truly believe that Orchard Orioles and Yelliwthroats live in my trees. There was also a Kest…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/22/c...
A new nature watcher was born today

Don’t Call Me Sue Where did your name come from? Since today was just fine (not too hot!) and I don’t want to come across too perky like I did yesterday, I’ll just answer this here question. My name is Rhynchomitra …

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/21/d...
I tried to be funny on this one.

Little Things Add Up I woke up this morning struggling with some of my “areas for improvement,” and I wasn’t feeling well at all. I’m grateful that I e trained myself to find the good around me, and after adding up all…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/20/l...
Thus, I had a good day after all

Storms Aplenty The morning was pleasant and fair. Beautiful start to the day. Then it got very hot, over 100°F. Suddenly a small but mighty storm blew in. It really blew. Here it comes, blowing that tree around. …

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/19/s...
The weather was confusing today

Book Report: Where the Forest Meets the Stars My friend Carolyn M recommended this book to me, because she said I had so much in common with the protagonist (and with the author). I’m glad she did, because the book is very sweet and took me do…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/18/b...
In which I somehow make someone else’s novel all about me

It’s Very Smooth around Here…the Bur Saga Continues You may remember that for the past couple of years we’ve had a problem with cockleburs in the horse pasture. I spent hours and hours removing them from manes and tails, and had a horrible time with…

thehermitsrest.blog/2025/08/17/i...
The war against cockleburs continues.