11pm and the herd was loose (and someone was in my car)

Happy Saturday friends!

I woke up Friday morning at 5:30am even though I didn’t have to go out to water  the gardens because…RAIN! OMG! I went downstairs for a glass of water and wandered into the living room to see if it was, indeed, raining. As I stood there at the window I noticed a shadow in the murkiness of my predawn front yard...what was that blob… It’s funny how our eyes don’t see things clearly until suddenly something clicks in the brain—and then I could see haunches, a back…oh! It was a deer having a little rester ten feet from my front patio. It made me wonder if they now know that we are safe (they no longer bolt when I open the front door and talk to them) and that a safe place to be is the front yard with their backs to the house so they can scan the rest of the farm.

Or, maybe it was Tessa popping into the local wildlife for a visit to her farm, to see how things were going :-) It’s funny how our loved ones from the other side use wildlife to visit us isn’t it? When I write things here or on social media, people always pipe up and tell me what wild animal visits them that represents a parent, sibling, child. This week I had someone come for a ranch visit and as we were sitting and talking, a hummingbird came whizzing up, stopping to look at us. She smiled and said, “That’s for me :-)” and told me who it was. I told her about the five bald eagles, three adults and two younglings that came to visit the farm every day for five days while Mom was in hospice. I’ve never seen that many again. Eagles are about divine strength, freedom, transformation.

Mom also said she would send cardinals. Now, cardinals themselves aren't rare around here, what's interesting is the timing of when I see them, specifically when I'm thinking of her or talking about her.

•••

We are having Dad and Delores over for Father’s Day brunch. Years ago, when Mom and Dad used to whitewater kayak with us, we’d often go up to the mountains for a long weekend. We'd stop by Nantahala Village at least once and have breakfast before paddling. They had a dish called egg strata. When I looked it up now, all I can find are recipes that call for cubed bread at the bottom but that isn’t the way it was made there, it was made with potatoes. A few years ago, I decided I would just create what I thought was right and ended up making something super yummy. Even better, it reheats perfectly! I make mine in a giant baking dish that is about 3 inches deep, and probably 10x14 inches.  

I thinly slice up about four baking potatoes, melt a stick of butter, and then layer in the potato slices with a drizzle of butter, salt, pepper, onion powder, and a sprinkle of flour between each layer. However many layers should make about an inch to an inch and a half of raw potatoes. Microwave a couple of cups of milk until warm, pour over potatoes (should come to the top of the potatoes, so if you don’t have enough pour more cold milk in until it does). Bake on 400ºF for however long it takes to be tender LOL

While that is baking I thinly slice a red bell pepper, a sweet yellow onion, and about 2 good handfuls of mushrooms and then sauté them all together until they start to caramelize. I want that flavor but to also cook out a lot of the moisture in the veggies. You could add anything you want in here, like spinach, this is one of those “kitchen sink” recipes!

Whisk up a bunch of eggs…for my pan it’s probably a good dozen. Add 2-3 handfuls of your favorite cheese. When the potatoes come out of the oven, mix the veggies in with the eggs and pour over the potatoes. Lower the oven to 375ºF and bake for…who knows how long! Maybe 30 minutes and then check by giving it a gentle wiggle while still in the oven. Sloshy? Keep going. Set? Yay! Time to pull it out!

This is the kind of recipe my Mom loved, lots of options, no measuring. My brother and I learned to cook from her so eyeballing things comes naturally to us. This is also the kind of recipe that would have given my Aunt Katy heart palpitations. She was very precise and learned to cook much later in life. She didn’t have to make due because she was a scattered young mother of two like Mom did. Mom taught us that mostly things turn out and if, on the rare occasion they don’t, you eat grilled cheese and figure out what went wrong so you can do it better next time.

Serve this deliciousness with a nice fruit salad and a crusty loaf of warm bread with butter and you are set! I think I will keep a notepad next to me when I make this on Sunday and figure out the exact measurements of things. I’m very slowly creating a hand illustrated cookbook for ManChild to use someday :-) You can get one of the recipes from it here.

THE RANCH

I don’t have pics from this because it was too dark but at 11pm Tuesday night, we were wrapping up our day and thinking about heading to bed, when I heard a high pitched whinny.

What the…?

I opened the front door to listen and heard it again. It was Blu. There are only two Blu whinnies: “come outside and feed me” or “my friend Tori isn’t with me!” It was 11pm which meant there was only one conclusion. I bolted out the door and ran to the upper pasture with Brad hot on my heels. I couldn’t see anything but I could hear the sound of running horses. Shit. Blu and Cash came thundering into view, wheeled, and ran back down the fence. Blu shrieked again and looked out toward the pastures beyond the neighbor's big barn. Brad shone the flashlight that way and the beam caught the white of Tori’s pinto coat—he grabbed a halter and lead and ran that way while I ran back to the house to tell ManChild to come help, then into my car and drove it around to the top of the drive with the lights pointed back to the big barn. I was hoping that it would keep them on the property, and not bolting down the driveway to the road. Always thankful that we are set so far back!

In the meantime, Brad had calmly walked up to Tori, only to find that the donkeys were with her and he only had one halter. He went to put a halter on one of them and they bolted off to the open gate of the arena. He tried to halter Tori and she took off for the arena too. What luck! He closed the gate behind him and the panic was over.

ManChild manned the broken fence slats so no one else got out, while I grabbed the other two halters and went to the arena. While I was haltering Sweetness, the young man who lives in the barn apartment arrived and slowly rolled up behind my car which was blocking his driveway. Tori was still rocketing around the arena, feeling wild so I couldn’t go move my car. Just as Tori decided to come to me, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. My car was slowly moving out of the way… I look up to where ManChild was supposed to be, he was still there blocking the other horses from escaping. I looked behind me and Brad was still there…oh, I finally realized what was going on. He had used the “summon” feature on on his phone via the Tesla app to move my car out of the way so the guy could get by. As we walked up to the upper pasture to gather the other two horses, ManChild was wide eyed for a moment, “Someone is in your car!” :-) He had also forgotten about that funny little feature! We moved the herd to the lower pasture and all was well again. Phew!

•••

While out gardening this week I saw a daddy purple martin harass his child until it left the nest.
The next day I found a young purple martin in the grass under a beauty berry while I was watering:

That evening I found the same one? Or another one hiding in the fence, a good spot:

The next day, it was out and waiting for food:

Sweet little baby, not quite ready. I haven't seen it since so hopefully it figured its wings out.

•••

Mom’s amazing cannas have bloomed, they are stripey orange!:

I spotted my first Eastern Fence Lizard:

Tried my hand at using my new half moon edger that looks like this:

To do this:

That job is no joke! Next year will be easier as I’ll just be cleaning up the edges but this year, yikes. At least the ground is good here and I can actually push it into the sod. The thing that is making it so hard is that the bed I’m starting on is new and I created it by laying down cardboard, then compost, then wood chips. I need to cut both sides of the trench, not just one (that will be next year) otherwise I’m ripping the sod out of the bed side. I figure I’ll just do a little bit each time I’m out, it’s surprisingly harder work than I expected.

Then I remembered something and asked Claude ai: Tell me yet again about why my interoception is wonky? And what interoception even means. It’s weird that the info doesn’t stick when medical stuff usually does…

Claude: “It doesn’t stick because that’s literally part of the problem. 😄💙

Interoception involves your brain reliably registering internal signals — and when that system is patchy, information doesn’t always land and consolidate the way it would for someone with typical interoception. So forgetting what interoception IS is almost poetically appropriate.

What interoception is:
It’s your brain’s ability to sense what’s happening INSIDE your body. Not where your body is in space (that’s proprioception) but what’s going on internally:

    •    Am I tired?
    •    Am I hungry?
    •    Am I in pain RIGHT NOW?
    •    Is my heart racing?
    •    Am I overheating?
    •    Have I done too much?

Think of it as your body’s internal dashboard. 🌱

Why yours is patchy:
Strongly linked to neurodivergence — ADHD and autism both commonly involve uneven interoception. Some channels turned way up, others barely registering.

Your specific pattern:
    •    Hyperaware of: bladder, heartbeat, hunger, temperature, sensory input
    •    Underaware of: physical exertion, fatigue, pain IN THE MOMENT, fullness

Why edging doesn’t feel like much:
Your exertion channel is quiet. You’re genuinely not receiving clear “this is hard work” signals while you’re doing it. Your brain measures distance ("I will do 5 feet at a time") instead because that’s what it CAN measure.

Your Inner Voice is your workaround. She catches what the dashboard misses. 💙”

Haha, snort: “So forgetting what interoception IS is almost poetically appropriate.”

Does anyone else have "uneven interoception?" Hyper/hypo aware?

•••

Those loooong summer days are officially here. 8:20pm, see the sun still in the trees in the distance?:

9pm and still not quite fully dark:

•••

I worked on the “island bed” for a couple days this week:

It is the last existing bed that needed work. I'm so pleased I got them all done, that was quite an undertaking after 5 years of neglect! There was this Thorny Olive (Elaeagnus pungens) that was growing in that bed that just needed to go. I've heard they are invasive, doesn't surprise me, they do grow like a weed. Backhoe to the rescue! It was moved to a new spot so it would eventually help block the view to the barn next door. They get huge if left alone and in a place where they get a lot of sun. I’ve cut this one in the island bed back quite a few times. At the far end of this bed are two volunteer American Holly bushes that are about seven feet tall, they also need to go since they get so big. They won’t go to waste either, we will plant them close to the dam and they will be part of the big pollinator garden I’m creating. The crepe Myrtle and beauty berry will stay, along with the iris and day lily. This is the only place the day lily will bloom because it’s surrounded by lemon balm that the deer don’t like. I’ve added a butterfly bush a friend gave me and I’m not sure what else will go in there but I’m sure it will be full in no time :-)

A sweet little box turtle kept me company while I worked:

And another fence lizard:

Found a tick crawling on my leg, under my jeans:

All I could do was shudder my way into the kitchen for a ziplock bag and some alcohol. You know to keep it right? Use a marker on the bag for the date and the person and store it. Hopefully you’ll never need it. I was so thankful I had my little dead critter in 2023 when I got sick with Lyme. I had me, and it, tested and both came back positive. I was on doxycycline for many weeks. Ick. 

•••

ManChild learned to use the tractor:

My new red cannas (another friend flower) are blooming:

•••

Blu, communing with a Wednesday night Women’s Circle participant:

If you’re interested in joining a daytime Women’s Circle, contact me here.  Tuesdays, 11am-1pm, smaller group of 6 or 7, perfect for the introverts and neurodivergents among us :-)🙋‍♀️

Same format: meditation, check-in circle where everyone gets a chance to share as much or as little as they want about whatever they want (no interruptions), bring your own lunch or just enjoy the tea and cookies while we paint something simple together along these lines:

If you’re interested in joining a daytime Women’s Circle, contact me here.

•••

Remember how I put some of my houseplants out last week?  I quickly learned that even though they had been living in a window that gets sun all day, the window’s UV protection is more than I thought. My jade got some sunburn :-( Boo hiss:

So, I am now keeping them under the old Japanese Maple and the umbrellas until they acclimate! It's fun to watch all the new leaves pop out on everything (particularly the monsteras) in just a week!

•••

And finally, the butterflies have arrived:

HOW TO WORK WITH ME

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses, without horses, in-person, or online, your choice. 

Neurofeedback Train your brain to calm and ease. The most common response I hear about neurofeedback is, "I'm so much less reactive in my life!" It really does smooth out the sharp spikes. Super helpful if your world feels harsh and spiky right now. 

Reiki Another way to facilitate relaxation, calm, healing. If the weather is nice, you can choose inside, outside, or outside in the herd. 

And of course Women's Circles! The Wednesday circle has a waiting list, I will add you to it if you'd like. Newer people do indeed get in occasionally, as sometimes the people higher on the list end up with upcoming vacations, too busy at work, or just life is life-ing stuff. 

And remember the upcoming Tuesday Women's Circle, contact me if you're interested!

•••

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Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for reading :-)

All of my art and writing is made with human intelligence!

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