Rain Update

We finally have had enough rain to display above the bottom of the chart.

The amount of rain and its timing are fairly random, but....

Here comes the rain again

Falling on my head like a memory

Falling on my head like a new emotion

I want to walk in the open wind

—Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart

This probably isn’t interesting to anyone except Suna and me. After an inch of rain over the last two nights, our ponds are finally full again.

The top chart shows we have had enough actual rain this year to climb onto the chart. Based on a completely unreliable model, we should have a fairly wet year this year. Last year, we finished with an slightly better than average year. But we had enough rain to meet that milestone by the end of June when the taps turned off for a couple of months.

The bottom chart shows when we get rain each year since I’ve been living on the Hermit’s Rest Ranch. While monthly distributions are fairly chaotic, it’s starting to feel more like a tropical pattern. That is, we get heavier rains early in the year, almost nothing through the summer, and light rains in the fall. Unless a tropical storm or hurricane brings a flood.

The pattern of rains, their scarcity, and the melting of the permafrost have been causing me nightmares of late. The climate is always changing, but is this the beginning of the apocalypse climate scientists are warning of? As my dad used to say, “We’ll see.”

Annual Goals, 2020 Edition

A well crafted goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-07-00.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about goal setting, but this is the time of year when we traditionally review what we’ve accomplished and figure out what we want to do next year. So, I thought it appropriate to review goal setting now. Especially since that’s what I’m doing.

Russell has also written on SMART goals, so I’m not going to rehash that topic. Instead, let’s talk about how we actually pick our annual goals.

1. What do you want to do?

My first step is to make a wish list of everything I want to accomplish in the next year—whether it is personal, financial, operational, or spiritual. This is a stream-of-consciousness exercise. I don’t focus on anything except identification of what I want to do. Grammar, spelling, logic, achievability, timing—everything else is irrelevant for this part of the process.

Here are a few of the many, many items from my wish list:

Flip some houses. Make a horse pasture. Renovate the old church as an event center.

Renovate the Gillis house for the Hearts, Homes, and Hands office. Improve our cash flow. Keep all of our businesses profitable.

Spend more time at the ranch. Spend more time with family. Help people.

2. Clarify and combine objectives.

You’ll notice these wish list items are not very specific, and some of them could be grouped together. So, that’s the next step: clarify and combine my goals. For example: “flip some houses,” improving cash flow, and the two renovation goals could be considered parts of the profitability goal. That goal now becomes, “Improve the profitability of the businesses by 10% year-over-year while maintaining a positive cash flow.”

The horse pasture can be combined with spending more time at the ranch and with family. That goal now becomes, “Spend more time with family by working with the horses at the ranch.” Building the horse pasture is an enabling goal for the annual goal. But “more time” is not very specific. Let’s make that “three Saturdays a month” to leave some time for activities other than horsing around.

Finally, everything in the list falls under “helping people.” So, I’m going to call that an underlaying motivation rather than a goal.

Sometimes one task or goal must be completed before another one can start. For example, we have to move the retention pond (big hole) in the foreground before we can put up the fence that needs to go through it. The silage and hay in the distance have to go elsewhere before the horses can be put in this pasture. The rocks can stay where they are.

3. Create a goal hierarchy.

The goal hierarchy helps you understand which of your goals need to be attained in which order and establish their relative importance to you. For example, we have to renovate the old church before we can use it as an event center, and we have to generate rental income from it to improve cash flow and profitability. Also, the businesses have to be making money to enable me to spend more time with my family.

• Spend three Saturdays each month with family at the ranch.
• Build a horse pasture by the end of the fourth quarter.
• Fence the pasture by the end of the second quarter.
• Build stalls by the end of the third quarter.
• Move the hay.
• Move the horses.
• Improve the profitability of the business by 10% year-over-year while maintaining a positive cash flow.
• Generate income from event center rentals by the end of the first quarter.
• Begin renting the conference room by the end of January.
• Renovate the conference room to a rentable standard by end of the first week in January.
• Begin renting the Sanctuary for bigger meetings by the end of the first quarter.
• Renovate the pulpit area by the end of February.
• Complete ceiling demo downstairs by the end of the first week in January.
• Reduce vacancies and leasing expenses by converting all rentals to two-year leases by the end of the year.

By doing this exercise, I reduced nine random wish-list items to two specific annual goals. You should never have more than three to five annual goals. The more goals you have, the less you can focus on achieving any of them. Focus is the key to success.

4. Remove any remaining ambiguity from the list.

You can have some ambiguity in your goal statements so long as you have clear definitions of what the terms mean. For example, “build a horse pasture” could mean a lot of things. But we have specific plans in place for:

Where the fence should go What kinds of fence material should be used Where in the fence gates need to be placed

Where the horse stalls will be located and how they will be made How to get water to the stalls How to light the stalls

Where and how to store feed.

All that’s left is to figure out where the money comes from.

I’ve recently started to use the Free to Focus planner. I find it a lot more intuitive and “focused” than the Covey system. It is one of the things that have me focused on goals right now.

5. Review the timeline to make sure the dates are attainable.

“Attainable” doesn’t mean “easy.” The timeline should cause a little stress. If it doesn’t, you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough. In business terms, you’re leaving money on the table.

6. Set a schedule to review and revise your goals.

I review my annual goals at least once a week. The priorities shift as the year goes on, and you have to be flexible. For example, a project going seriously over budget can delay other projects and affect the attainment of goals. That doesn’t mean I rewrite my goals weekly, but keeping the goal line in view means I can understand and communicate how projects relate to and affect each other. (Actually, improving this communication is one of my goals for next year.)

I’ve recently started using the Free to Focus planner. That planner requires me to transfer (by hand) my goals from one quarterly planner to the next. That process also gives me an opportunity to clarify and reprioritize my goals. Writing the goals out by hand reinforces them in my mind in a way that typing them into an online planner does not.

In the end, the way you set and track your goals is as individual a process as what your goals actually are. This process works for me. I hope it helps you, too.

Thanksgiving 2019

Rollie, Suna, and Declan picked dead things for the table centerpiece. Omnia perit. Photo by Declan

Where’s Declan? Hint: he shows up twice. Photo by Suna

Easy lovin’, everyday’s Thanksgiving,

To count all my blessings,

I wouldn’t know where to start

— Freddie Hart (1926-2018)

I swear I’m not just writing so much about gratitude this week because it’s Thanksgiving in the US. That is a factor, but it’s not the only one. I am really feeling grateful for all that’s happening to me and that I’m accomplishing. But this post focuses specifically on Thanksgiving Day.

Using my new journaling system, I blocked off the whole day as Family Time. And that’s how I spent it. I watched my Cowboys lose again. I listened to someone cry about everyone treating her unfairly. We had friends and family over. And I finally went to bed having accomplished everything on my to-do list—specifically eating too much.

Someone on NPR today said that Thanksgiving is representative of America’s genius. You don’t need to have a specific ethnicity, creed, or religion to celebrate it. All you need is people and food. And to day we certainly had those in abundance. I really am grateful.

The dishes can wait for another day.

Happy Birthday, Ralph

We did have another visitor yesterday. Elaine stopped by the ranch on her way from Austin to Houston. Photo by: Suna

Happy birthday to you. You live in a zoo.

You look like a monkey and smell like one, too.

—Childhood parody

Yesterday we celebrated Ralph’s 61st birthday, which actually occurs sometime around Tuesday. When it actually happens depends on how you look at it. Since he was born in Tasmania, he could celebrate more than 12 hours ahead of when he would here in the US, starting the day before. In fact, he says he has a 44 hour birthday.

As usual, he seems to of spent most of the day cooking in preparation for the party. He made what he calls a sweet and sour dish, but you can’t really tell. It didn’t taste like any sweet and sour I’ve ever had, but it was good. Also made curry dish which everyone that we would eat it said was good. While I find his crew dishes more edible than most, I avoid them when possible.

Sue Ann and Canova brought dessert, all of which got eaten.

Also in attendance were Duffy, one of his friends whose name I don’t remember, and Robert Palmer—not the singer; he’s dead, and we don’t really care for zombies showing up at our celebrations.

After dinner, Duffy regaled us with funny stories about the time he owned a rhesus monkey. We drink a lot of wine and went home.

 

We Occasionally Get to Kick Back

I am so pleased with how good a dog Brody is turning out to be. His loyalty is beyond question. Photo by: Suna

Suna enjoys a cold, funny-flavored Shiner. I prefer beer that tastes like beer.

Brody and Harvey pretend to be so ferocious. They play like predators.

After the stresses of the last week—the floods, worrying about if any of our projects were damaged in the storms (They weren’t.), and keeping up with life in general, it’s nice to be able to take a few minutes to relax and enjoy ourselves. So that is exactly what we did.

Suna and I sat on the back porch at the ranch and enjoyed the natural beauty around us. We enjoyed each other’s company. Oh, yeah. A few adult beverages were involved in the enjoyment, too.

The dogs enjoyed being able to get out and have fun. Brody and Harvey act like human brothers. They play hard. They beat each other bloody, although they are very careful not to really hurt each other. Then they curl up for a nap together. I love watching them, and they are such good companions.

He’ll Be Watching Me

Brody watches me from the porch while Harvey plays in the grass.

Every breath you take, every move you make

I’ll be watching you.

— Sting

I wanted to post this picture to show one reason why we do what we do. These two keep me sane. Dogs are very grounded creatures. They care deeply about their pack family, but they live in the eternal present. No worries beyond right now. What a wonderful way to live.

Brody never takes his eyes off of me. In fact, Suna has a T-shirt with a cattle dog looking longingly up at you and the words to the Sting song on it.

Meanwhile, Harvey is rolling in something he loves out in the grass.

Good Company

This isn’t a very good picture, but it shows the boys in one of their favorite office activities: pretending to be cats sitting in a window.

I spend a lot of time working in my “office,” which is really a room in the garage I originally intended to use as a woodshop. Brody and Harvey keep me company even though I’m sure they’re bored. They still like hanging out with me.

Dogs and Doors

Harvey can’t believe Brody would attack my foot. Rose watches Harvey.

The garage provides enough space to stain all the doors and let them dry.
The stain on the doors matches the bookcases and trim in Suna’s office. It contrasts well with the green walls.

It’s a tug of war.

We expected more.

But with one thing and another,

We were trying to outdo each other.

—Paul McCartney

Rose and Brody have accepted Harvey. Rose is so easy going, she was never at question. I was more concerned with how the two mail adolescents would get along.

Brody, who has been with me since he was six weeks old, is comfortable enough with me to use me as chew toys—especially my socks...especially when they’re still on my feet. Harvey looks on in disbelief every time. Sometimes he looks at me as if to say, “I would never treat you like that, New Daddy.”

Doors

The painter lined up the new doors in the garage to stain. They looked almost like they were floating if you ignored the bits of wood at the top and bottom that held them together.

The garage made the perfect place to stain the doors. It had plenty of room to work, and it didn’t matter if the overspray hit the floor or the walls, not that there seemed to be that much overspray. Finally, leaving the doors open a bit provided plenty of airflow to encourage drying.

Once the stain dried, it is a perfect match for the bookcases and trim installed throughout the house. It stands out nicely against the green Suna chose for her office. It’s darker than the caucasian color of the downstairs, but it may be a bit too close of a match for the bamboo we installed upstairs. It does stand out somewhat against the chocolate color of the master bedroom and the orange of the master bath.

 

A New Harvey

Sara pets Harvey at the Annex
“What’s that other dog doing over there. He looks nice.”

“Thank you for feeding me. Will you be my new daddy?”
You can see the poor boy’s ribs through his coat from the front. There are also two wounds on his side where he was either shot or impaled by something.
I don’t know how anybody could abandon such a sweet boy to starve to death. There must have been something serious going on in their life.

That’s just the way it is

Some things will never change

That’s just the way it is

Ah, but don’t you believe them

—Bruce Hornsby

When we went to our friend Janet’s house for Thanksgiving, our neighbors were there, too. Ralph and Sara told Suna and me about this dog someone had dumped at the Rattlesnake Annex.

People dump dogs in the country all the time. I guess they think the dogs can survive by hunting or something. But most abandoned dogs are shot when they try to get at someone’s livestock or chickens. Almost all of the others starve to death because they have to learn how to hunt. If they’re abandoned, they don’t have time to learn before they starve. Only a few get rescued.

I didn’t think too much about another abandoned dog. Ralph or someone would probably put him out of his misery before he suffered too much. So I was surprised when Ralph called this morning to tell me I needed to “come get this dog.” He was still at the Annex, and Ralph had apparently been feeding him enough scraps to keep him going. Ralph explained, “He waits at the gate everyday for his people to come back and get him. He only leaves long enough to find some water or maybe a little to eat.” Ralph said the dog was understandably shy and hard to get close to. It had taken him a couple of weeks to get him to take food without waiting for Ralph to leave.

When I pulled up at the Annex, Sara was petting him. They had given him a bone with some meat on it to chew. I talked to them a bit. When he saw me leaving, he walked calmly to the car. When I opened the door, he jumped in, crawled into the passenger seat, and sat down looking at me like he was trying to say, “Okay. Let’s go home now.”

I took him home, and Brody accepted him without question. Suna calls him Harvey. Or Starvey Harvey because he’s so starved (only 19.2 pounds, although his frame will support at least twice that). To keep from making him sick, I fed him only about half a cup of dog food, which he ate greedily. When he was done, he jumped on the couch, laid his head down on my lap, and went to sleep.

That is not normal behavior for a rescue. I’ve spent the better part of a week getting a rescue to let me see them. I’ve never been accepted so quickly.

I guess Harvey is home.

 

It Rained

Once again, the rain chains were overpowered. Need more chains or a different solution. I forgot to mention that Jaime installed the mesquite mantle. Suna has it decorated for Halloween.

I need more pallets and a better way to get to the garage. The front pond is full and cleaner after the deluge.

But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

—Bob Dylan

I don't really know how much rain we got since the rain gauges overfilled, but we have at least 7 inches over the last two days, and it's still raining. If it had come earlier, we might not have had the cigarette induced grass fire earlier this month. But it is what it is.

Once again our climate model held up: mainly drought broken by flood. The front pond was low enough to capture all the runoff, so the dam wasn’t breached this time. But the ground is very soggy. I spread a bunch of pallets between the garage and the front porch. I could use a couple more. At the height of the rain, they were just tall enough to keep our feet out of the water.

The ponds are all full again. The cattle will like that. The flow of fresh water also cleaned out most of the pond scum growing in the front pond.

 

Cowgirling

Suna helps Ralph with the cattle.

[Q: If three identically-dressed men are in a pickup, which one is the real cowboy?]

“The real cowboy’s the one in the middle

He ain’t there just by fate

Cause first he don’t have to drive

And then he don’t have to mess with the gate”

—Michael Martin Murphey

Ranch life has been really good for Suna. He love of animals encourages her to get out there and learn all about working cattle and dealing with horses. Not to mention that she knows every bird around here by name.

Today she’s out helping Ralph with the cattle. Her own description is that she looks very “rancher-ish.” She may still be more hat than cattle, but it won’t be long now.

 

Progress on a Number of Fronts

Rose is almost playing with Brody. Persistence pays off, just like in business.

The TV is up in our living room. Never mind that we’re still using lawn furniture.

We’re making progress on our marketing. Russell set up a website at hermithaus.com. We’re figuring out how to set up our credibility pack—the publication that tells all about Hermit Haus Redevelopment and why you should want to do business with us—in different pages. It will also have a new blog so we can talk about ourselves as nauseum there.

Jeff, Mike, and Martha enjoy our back porch. It’s clean for a change. Photo by: Suna

Debbie gave us a set of mugs promoting her new CD. Photo by: Suna

We had more company today than we usually have in a … well, ever. Jeff and Debbie came out and brought us mugs that promote her new CD: Suite Journey. Mike and Martha came out just to visit.

It was great having company. We talked. We hiked. We talked. We drank. We talked….

 

Sunset Over Drying Pond

Sunset over the front pond

I just wanted to show a pretty sunset. The pond is drying out after the hot summer, but the place is still beautiful.

 

Ranch House Update

Brody will miss the mortar sand pile when it’s gone. We’ll see how these outdoor ceiling fans work out. We may never even need to turn them on.

Suna chose red glass subway tiles for the kitchen backsplash. Every now and then, there’s a matt tile mixed in with the glossy tiles for effect. There isn’t a lot of contrast between the bookshelves and the floors. They will look better once they are filled.

We’re getting close to done. All that’s left of the rock work on the exterior is the front porch columns. The rest of the house is done. Just in time for it to start cooling off a bit. Poor Raul.

Somehow, I let Suna talk me into installing ceiling fans on the front and back porches, despite the constant breeze. She said something like, “There will be calm days,” and I relented. So we have two fans on the front porch and four in back.

Inside, the backsplashes are going up. Suna picked out a red subway tile for the kitchen and a limestone with red glass highlights for the butler’s pantry/storm room and laundry room.

The cabinet maker also delivered the bookcases for the master suite and Suna’s office. They are stained almost exactly the same color as the floors upstairs, so not a lot of contrast there.

Upstairs also has a cabinet for the fancy coffee maker. Between the couch, the dining set, the bed, and now the coffee maker, I may never have to leave the master suite again.

 

Stained Glass

Raul continued to rock the back of the house, even though I didn’t want to work in the threatening rain. We found two of these windows.

This is the most intricate of the windows we found. I wish there were more like it.

You can't get this great stuff anymore, I don’t know why

But I bet we’ll make some young strangers happy when we die

—Cheryl Wheeler

Since the weather didn’t look promising for [me to] work outside, Suna and I decided to get away to Temple to just hang out and have fun. We decided to go antiquing, something we hadn’t done in a while. Antiquing isn’t as productive as estate saling, but you don’t have to get up as early and it’s just as fun. We found some really nice old stained glass windows in one of the antique stores. They were really the only interesting things we found all day.

So we bought four of them to clean up and hang over the stairway. They won’t be damaged by the sunlight, and they should reflect it nicely.

 

Girls Love Horses

“Hey! Where’s my cuddles?” Photo by: Suna

Pardner and Elizabeth Photo by: Suna

Why? Tell me why?

Oh why? Do girls love horses?

—Adam Ant

Our friend Elizabeth came to visit. Suna took her to see the horses, of course. Nobody really comes to see me. They come to see Suna and the horses. That’s okay. I’m really a hermit at heart.

Elizabeth and Spice got on so well they made Apache jealous—not that it’s that difficult. But in the end, horse cuddles make everything better, except maybe chocolate.

 

Muscles Where?

What is it about dogs and tissues. I’ve never seen a dog who isn’t fascinated by reducing paper to a thousand small pieces.

Raul has to pick up each rock between two and four times. We bought 192 tons for the house.

Despite the August heat, Raul has been working very hard to skin the first floor in rock. First, he moves a selection of rocks into his work area. Then he picks them out, one by one, until he finds the right one for the spot, shaping it as needed by beating it with a mason’s hammer. Finally, he mortars the spot and places the rock. Next rock.

That means he’s going to pick up up to 192 tons of rock at least twice. Much of it, he’ll pick up four times as he lifts it up to the scaffolding he stands on to get to the top of the wall.

Raul is the only worker our neighbor Ralph respects. Ralph watch him work for a half hour or so. Then he said in his inimical Australian way, “That man must have muscles in his shit.”

 

It’s Freakin’ Hot

The grass is turning crunchy and brown. Photo by: Suna

Brody is learning how to negotiate the stairs. Photo by: Suna

She patrols that fence of his

To a Latin drum

And the hissing of summer lawns

—John Guerin and Joni Mitchell

It’s freakin’ hot outside—more than 100^°F. The grass has turned its summer brown. When we go for walks, we experience the crunching of summer lawns.

With it being this hot, of course it’s time to start some really difficult outside work. The sand and mortar mix have been delivered, so Raul can start putting the stone on the side of the house. It’s really getting close to being finished.

But we’re enjoying the porch now that we’ve cleaned it up. Suna says even with the heat, the front porch is fairly comfortable. In the late afternoon, we can sit on the front porch and enjoy the shade and the breeze. I’m glad we had the eaves insulted. That helps keep the heat off of us.

 

Ranch House Update

Yes, that’s labradorite on the countertop.

All the sinks in the master bath now work, too.

We’re getting closer. We now have working plumbing in all three bathrooms. Suna picked a lovely vessel sink for her office bathroom and standard under-counter sinks for the guest room and the master bath.

We did have one more setback. The big wine refrigerator we ordered turned out to not be the one we got. The cabinet in the butler’s pantry (storm room) was designed for the original one.

Now we have to have the enclosure modified. The cabinet maker suggested making additional bottle storage. I can’t wait to see how he makes it work.