This weekend my four months of non stop chaos and hard word caught up with me, so I had to do the unthinkable and rest. I even engaged in the more unthinkable and took two, three hour naps, two days in a row on top of sleeping 8 and 9 hours a night.
Yes, I was more than a little bit worn out.
Today, I am feeling a bit more like me, although I think another nap may be in the cards. It's all good though because this resting stuff is kinda catching on with me.
It's good to just stop. I know it's good, it's just also been my lived practice to be constantly hustling. So, in the vein of developing good habits, yesterday was deemed rest day. Okay, so I might have picked some raspberries, canned a bit of jam, and made a bit of syrup in the morning, but all afternoon I did indeed rest. So did the hubs.
In fact, part of our resting thing that we are doing is to do more fun things instead of just working ourselves into bedrot status. So yesterday's activity was going out in the rowboat and just gliding around the lake.
As the lake is smackdab in the middle of the ranch and private, there is never a soul on it, save for the multitudes of animals that call it their home. The hour and a half the hubs spent leisurely rowing with Cora the boat dog along for the ride was just magical.
To start with, the water resembles liquid obsidian. It's a silken, inky black that was completely calm last night, the only movement being the thousands upon thousands of water insects gliding upon the top.
Of course, there were multiple Canadian geese attendance, as were our friends the loons, who called out as they recon scouted ahead of us. One of the first things we saw was daddy eagle taking off for a flight to the north side of the lake out of the nest tree. As we got close to the old larch snag, mama eagle took off towards the south where the creek feeds into the lake. As we drifted up next to the nest tree we got to see the eaglet, who is now fully feathered and almost as large as its parents.
Nearer the south we saw a grass knoll and were checking out some wood ducks when two young whitetail bucks with a full on case of the zoomies burst out of the woods and entertained us for more than a bit with their antics.
As we drifted back to the dock we saw woodpeckers, grosbeaks, and were heavily inspected by daddy eagle who watched us from a larch snag most sternly. Boat dog rose to the side of the boat with equal regality, although I told her that might not be a fair fight and she best tone it down.
Both the hubs and I were all smiles as we walked hand and hand back up to our house. No phones, no noise, no other humans for miles. This place is good for our weary and worn down souls.
And the resulting sleep was magical.
This morning we both woke up pretty chipper, in fact, as I put on the coffee and got the hummingbird nectar pitcher to go refill all of the ranch's many feeders as I do most days, I wondered what sort of magic today would bring.
The magic was a bit more metal than I was expecting. As I exited the main cabin after checking my mouse trap line, I noticed all of the birds were very still. I needed to walk down to the guest cabin to fill its feeder, and as I started on my way I noticed the corg was sticking close to me.
Well, the first thing I noticed was a large flash of white right next to the shore by the guest cabin. That's not a goose, was my first thought.
Nope, it was mama eagle, and she was absolutely savaging a bird, feathers were flying as she picked apart the thankfully dispatched creature. I am pretty sure it was a young Canadian goose.
The corg and I decided to wait a bit to fill the last feeder, as I had no desire to interrupt Mama's breakfasting. Nature's gotta Nature after all.
I thought a lot about how life unfolds as I went on about my chores of weedeating, laundry, ordering my college textbooks, and kitchen cleaning. One of my upcoming classes is self-care as there is a propensity of people in my profession to burn out. I know a thing or two about that topic, so I am hoping to learn a bunch of techniques to put into my newly developing discipline of taking the rest I need. It's hard to unlearn bad habits, but I am up for the challenge, and I am super thankful that I have such a wonderful place to learn and practice them in!