June 17

"Hop in, darlin'" and away we go via the shortcut to Stonewall for the Peach JAMboree parade, Chuck and his oldest daughter and her husband and I. 

We got a good shady spot on Chuck's friend's lawn to watch. Miss Peach JAMboree contestants, volunteer firefighters, antique tractors, floats from local businesses, political representatives, horseback riders...

After, picked up BBQ roasts from the dozen or so big metal cookers that had been going for 18 hours and took it back to Chuck's for a ranch-style lunch with the friends of 30+ years that they bumped into in Stonewall completely randomly.

It was a good day. Interesting, courteous, friendly people. I even played the egg-pusher and offloaded a dozen.

I begged off on going to Fredericksburg for the big annual powwow that celebrates the surviving treaty between a Comanche tribe and the German settlers here. I'll regret it later, maybe, but 

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y...night!

- Dreamy half-nap on the porch with a hot wind blowing by and the birds calling

- Hosed down the porch to cool the cats

- A limping chicken ("Maybe snake-bit")

- Every single topic that you want to avoid as a liberal Californian guest in Texas coming up in the space of a few hours (new today)

June 16

It's a cool 86 degrees now at 9:15 local time... 103 in town this afternoon, high of 96 here at HQ. Keep wondering why I feel so sluggish. Ha.

Chuck came to pick up the trap - apparently the raccoons will kill new baby goats, too, and he's got three brand-new babies in the pen - and invited me to go with him and his daughter to the Peach Festival and Rodeo in Stonewall tomorrow. Need to be down the house at 9am so we have plenty of time to get there for the parade at 10:30. Should be fun. The peaches, I already know, are delicious.

Looking forward to picking Matt up in Austin on Monday and having a few in-person days together. May zip-tie him to something immovable and cancel his return flight. FaceTime makes a huge difference, but...

Other than the five-or-less-minute interaction with Chuck, my day was exciting because I interacted with sales clerks at the HEB and at the consignment store (where I found a good pair of second-hand cowgirl boots). !!! 

Time moves differently here, and I am going slowly insane. :-) Kidding.

Addendum: A billion stars in a dark sky void of city light... crickets' call-and-answer... smell of dry grass and cows on the breeze... heaven

June 14

This week I've (thankfully) relaxed enough to focus on painting, and I'm pleased with results. There are three new 5' x 3' pieces that I'm excited about, two that I'm okay with, and one that I thought was a throwaway until my Dad's reaction to it via FaceTime, which reminded me that it's not my job to mediate reactions to my work... I just have to do it, and let the reactions happen as may. And I'm thinking (not arrogantly) that there is going to be good reaction to the Texas work. I'm getting my chops back and everything is less constrained, full of movement. And I've got nothing better to do than practice and channel.

Way ahead of schedule and out of paint; I'll get more when I go to Austin to pick up Matt from the airport on Monday (Monday!! Yay).

I'll also take the glass to be recycled in Austin. Another thing to take for granted about living in the Bay Area.

Meantime... I'm not ignorant of what's happening out there, good and crazy and go-make-popcorn. Horrified and hopeful.

Renald drinking from the hose...

June 13

Today, other than baby goats climbing trees, and walking sticks:

Once I've been eating Lone Star state ["natural"] chicken for the summer I expect to grow huge breasts and thighs (reminded that California has pretty awesomely high standards for chicken farmers)

$30 haircut (nothing compares 2 u Ryan) is $30 haircut

It's getting hotter.

The neighbors have a herd of black pigs that just wandered into the pasture. Pigs!!!***

Navel-gazing alert: I love this place. There is a cacophony of nighttime fauna, a warm breeze, wineries and peach stands and historical landmarks, dance halls, solitude, more fauna... I am having a dreamy time of life, and encourage visitors. Just missing my Matt.

*** Later realized that what I'd seeen was a pack of infamous wild boar.

June 12

So many bug freak outs in one hour that it was comical:

- Discover scorpion in fold of painting tarp, shriek

- Surprised by almost stepping on a giant dragonfly while trying to get rid of the scorpion, shriek

- Still messing with the tarp and scorpion, get buzzed by giant wasp-thing that CAUGHT IN MY HAIR for a nanosecond, shriek

- Get rid of scorpion, pick up the palette that a thumb-sized tarantula was crouched under, shriek

- Plus a jumping spider and a dead beetle in the paint box that I foolishly left the lid off yesterday

It surprisingly turned out to be a better-thank usual painting session, so ... dunno.

Right now one of those tarantulas is on the table about a foot away from my foot, just chillin. I'm keeping an eye on it.

Two weeks in Fredericksburg

Today is a painting day; no reason to drive to town, not my day to feed the horses, no invitations to dinner with the relatives. No raccoon in the trap this morning or any other issues (yet) requiring Chuck to drive up to the house.

(Chuck has come up here already, around 7:30. He let himself into the house, shouted up the steps to ask if I was up yet and said that he was just going to take some eggs, which he did, and left again. Note to self: keep the kitchen tidy in case of unexpected guests. Yesterday it was Michael and Suzanne who came to take eggs; I met them coming up the drive as I was leaving and told them to help themselves. It's like that here on the ranch.)

Yesterday I mowed the lawn, for about an hour. The mower is slow and there's a cup holder so I took a can of water out with me and ruminated on some of what Matt and I have been discussing. We've been on FaceTime at least once every day that I've been gone, more often twice, having interesting conversations and doing our best to stay close through the separation. There's a lot to think about.

The past two weeks have been a roller coaster. It's overwhelming to be here, so different in so many ways from where I've been, and every day the newness requires mindfulness discipline that I am not practicing as much as I should. I'm anxious and/or happy by the minute. It distracts me from painting. I'm worried about things I don't have control over and worried that the worrying will itself lead to something worrisome.

But I have been painting, and it will get easier. Most days feel a little more settled than the one before. 

There is an overly friendly thumb-sized tarantula hanging out on the table about two feet from my knees. Also distracting.

So today is a painting day and I'm clearly stalling but it's also a reflective day and a chance to practice breathing, trusting, detaching from desired outcomes, and being present in this moment. That will help with painting and with not blowing shit up, too. My plan today is to create aggressively and make a mess of only my workspace.

June 11

Ten chickens made it through the night, one chicken-stalking [male] raccoon was trapped and shot, and the lawn is mowed.

6pm

Today, post raccoon-killing and lawn-mowing:

Cousin came by to take eggs, down to a dozen and relieved

Drove to Blanco for the Lavender Festival. Cute town! Not as much lavender in evidence as suggested by the name

Ate BBQ brisket and jalapeño sausage sandwich and nearly died of food swoon

Had deer bound across highway in front of me and nearly died of adrenaline dump [exaggeration]

Stopped at scenic river dam, put feet in, resolved to travel with swimsuit going forward

Hosed off and reset trap, crossed fingers that it was only the one raccoon, wondered if I should look up TX gun law and see if it's okay for me to carry Jeffrey's gun in the truck in case I hit but don't kill something and have to hasten its passing (BF jokes: "Can't you just run over it again?")

This area is technicolor beautiful.

June 10

Big day!

I didn't put the hook on the door to the chicken coop last night, it blew open, and one of the girls was dispatched (feathers everywhere, no sign of body) :-(

Rode the gelding bareback around the pasture a little and worked the mare in the round pen

Painted for a few hours instead of taking a nap

Stopped in at Chuck's to tell him about the chicken and got a newspaper with all the local (totally relative) places to hear live music and hand-drawn maps to get to each

Found the dumpster! Only took me a week

Chuck came up to set a trap for the presumed perpetrator of the chicken dispatch and asked if I had found Jeffrey's gun yet but when I said I'd never even handled a gun before he helpfully offered to come shoot whatever is in there in the morning (obviously given my affection for raccoons this will be a difficult one but #ranchlife and that was a big chicken)

Then we spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the lawnmower wouldn't start - interrupted by Chuck needing to look in on a goat that had had triplets - and I am finally in the lawn mowing business

That's a lot of excitement for one day.

June 9

Today:

Ate! Twice!

Fed horses

Old Golden Retriever visited to cool off in the pond

Baby goat separated from herd and nothing I could do

Bathed and brushed teeth and put on clothes!

Jumped on trampoline

Sent reflective correspondence

Appreciated life while watching swallows at twilight

Lonesome out here.

June 8

Eggs. Up to around 3 dozen. Frittata, lemon curd, pudding cake, egg salad, deviled eggs... and scrambled eggs for the chickens. Weird and satisfying nutrient cycle., the chickens love to eat scrambled eggs.

* * *

Lying on my back on the trampoline listening to crickets and frogs and my beloved cousin being happy, looking up at the full moon... bliss. Today could have been pretty awful but it wasn't, because love.

June 7

Today:

- Realized there's no reason not to wear my nightie out to the chicken coop

- Giant spider 3x the size of the last giant spider (outside)

- Played with horses

- Noticed some nice mushrooms growing in the horse poop that will surely make a delicious omelet (kidding!)

- Chased baby goats out of the road

- Made lunch out of stuff from the garden (not baby goats or unidentified mushrooms)

- Fell into internet/news/porch wormhole instead of painting (it's okay... I'm ahead of schedule)

- Now to get drunk and mow the lawn (kidding!)

June 5

Today neither the goat- nor the cow-herd nor any big bugs or reptiles came to the house. Just me, the chickens, and the horrors that sometimes come out of the cupboard when I commit my soul to drawing and painting all day. Isolation is a good place for it I guess? It's no joke.

Art and idyll

First Friday Art Walk in Fredericksburg was a hoot. There are a LOT of galleries, quite a few people with plastic wine cups in hand, and a fair number of red dots next to paintings. I didn't see much abstract art, mostly landscapes and livestock.

This woman was giddily happy about this painting that her husband bought her for her birthday. It was heartwarming. ($11,200!!!)

The art was mostly really impressive, and I had fun with Randy and Carrie. They left an impression that there will be plenty of social opportunities while I'm here.

Before I left I collected eggs from the henhouse. The girls all lay their eggs in one box, which seems odd but maybe it's not?

The drive home at twilight was beautiful, green pastures and big puffy thunder clouds and lambs everywhere. I stopped to let a trio of wild turkeys cross the road while a family of deer ran by, white tails flagging, and said goodnight to the horses, and watched fireflies from the patio with a glass of wine.

Today I've spent painting, and battling Blogger on the iPad because my laptop died a few days ago. Bleah. Painting is better.

Second-phase launch

Katherine and her daughter left today for Alaska, and Josephine and I moved into the big house for the duration of our stay. The house is beautiful and I am incredibly fortunate to be here... it'll be a bit of an adjustment to be out here alone.

Not entirely alone. Last night Katherine's father-in-law Chuck, her sister-in-law Carrie - with husband Paul and French exchange student Matisse - and Randy came over for pizza and we spent a nice evening on the patio. We exchanged phone numbers; in the likely event that there's trouble (spring well, septic, animal in distress...) I can call Chuck and he will come fix it or shoot it. Carrie has offered to let me borrow her cherry pitter for pies. Tonight she and I will meet Randy in town for the First Friday Art Walk. I'll be connected to a community, and that will be great.

After everyone left I put the chickens to bed. While the door was open Curly Joe the bottle-fed goat got into the coop. As soon as I'd wrestled him out the big white dog got in and I had to muscle her out. Minor abrasions were endured. All live on FaceTime. Probably should have put the phone down but these experiences really should be shared. :-D

Tomorrow morning painting starts. I've never had the opportunity to paint in isolation before and I'm interested to see how differently it feels. Kind of exciting.

Here's the patio where I'll paint:

 

I am on a great adventure.

Noteable things: 

* That strange sound I've been hearing turns out to be cow farts

* Most things that I would throw into the compost back home I can toss to the chickens; what they won't eat the goats will

This was on the shower curtain this morning