Bursting

 I am thoroughly enjoying seeing all of the native plants thriving! We have become a bit of a team, them and me, me and them. I am always amazed at how just a bit of a tip of the scale can make the difference, either in a good or bad way, for them to be able to defend themselves against the bad stuff. I am really, really looking forward to being able to dedicate more of my time to learning more about the plants that I am still struggling to identify, and now that the majority of my belongings are packed up and I have survived this long without them, that tells me to live by the motto of "less stuff, more experiences." I am sure that when we participate in the indoor rummage sale again this Fall, that we will have even more to get rid of than what I do currently. That's a good thing.

But on we go into the great wilderness that is our land! On we go to the GD thistle that my app always tells me is field or spear thistle, even when I take a picture of something that looks nothing like the previous one, lol. I hear though that there can be a lot of variation in the same species of plant. That is not funny. Not at all.

These feel so proud to me! Tall Anenome...which I love saying. They aren't showy or vibrant, but they stand out. Native.

St. Johns Wort. So, apparently there are various varieties of this plant. I already know that one variety is the non-native European one and I do plan on digging that out no later than next year. But what I found more recently looks different. My app says this one is Native, but someone in a plant group has something different. So again, I am confused.

 Supposedly Dwarf St. John Wort, and native to parts of the U.S. I now have this marked as a "no mow zone" which is probably driving Woodchuck crazy. Like, ya'all....he can let plants get over 10 foot tall where we currently live (and I have the pictures to prove it), but at the land he wants to mow EVERYTHING down. 😆

Warning, Will Robinson! Unidentified plants species!

Palette cleanser toad for your viewing pleasure! He's larger than most that I have been running across.

I walked right past these and didn't notice them the first time. It's amazing how something so vibrant can blend in to neutrals. I saw them on my way back through the area, coming from the opposite direction. I would assume they are Blue Bird.

Always the odd ball looking deer-tongue grass. I wonder sometimes how things get their names. 

One of my favorites, though based mostly off of its name, is the Enchanters Nightshade! However, I love how the leaves on them have little spots that remind me of the Cosmos! But I have read where that is not a natural characteristic of the plant, but rather an insect causing it.

Water hemlock in the front ditch. Fun fact: when I worked for the parks department, my park name was Hemlock Heather.

I barely saw this little friend, it blended in so well! It looks like it's hind end is injured? 😞 (and it is sitting on some milkweed).

So many insects utilizing one plant! These are coming out, but for the time being the insects can enjoy.

Not to be confused with the native marsh rose being utilized by the banded long-horn beetles. They look like they have tortoise shells on their backs!

Arrow-leaf Tearthumb, native to areas of the U.S.

These two different plants are on the new pond bank and I have no idea what they are.

Flowering spurge, one of my favorites! Native

I have started, and finished a new project. A bucket full of branches that I have had for years, and have had ideas for, is finally starting to get used. This branch star is made from a variety of branches that I can't identify but that are from my land. They came from pruning years ago, or taking things down completely. Wrapped in cotton cord and decorated with faux mushrooms, real birch paper/pine cones/wood/moss and more, and adorned with an antique sleigh bell. I will get a finished photo soon!

Amongst all of the plants and art, Woodchuck and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary! I remember the days when we could have day dates once a week and celebrate our anniversary all week long, but now? We are lucky to take an entire day for it. We did go to a restaurant that has all handmade pasta and it was SO good! We also got free dessert 😍

And back here around the house? Well, I have had to slow down due to my arm and the construction loan closing keeps getting pushed out, and moving month keeps getting changed and I am exhausted by going full tilt, thinking we had very little time to get this place whipped into staging mode. But recently pulled weeds with one arm from the patio. I left A LOT of plants, because they are good ones, but I know others are looking at that patio like it's a mess. But you know what? They aren't the ones watching those plants mitigate flooding on the patio during heavy rains, or the ones finding little toads under a violet leaf so it can get out from the sun😍

And as the loan closing date gets moved around, so does some of our choices for the new house. I can't remember if I mentioned it here or not, but I had a feeling the flooring was going to be changing...either by my request or the factory. And it turned out it was from the factory. Their supplier had changed, and I had four options of non-carpet flooring colors to choose from. 

I had it narrowed down to two out of these four, with a strong leaning to one of the two. The rep told me if I couldn't decide, he'd be happy to send a photo of flooring next to the cabinets we picked and that ended up being what I asked him to do and I am really glad that I did! I was torn between Blended wood and Lime Oak, leaning toward Lime Oak. It resembles closely what we have here at the house now and is what I am used to. I was a bit worried that the Blended Wood would make it harder for us to see messes on the floor. But when the rep sent the photos, the Blended Wood ended up being much more gray than I expected it to be, so it was an easy choice for the Lime Oak.

Blended Wood in front of the cabinet we picked. I just felt like it was too gray.

We have had a couple of strong storms blow through recently. I was visiting my mother one day and there was rain in the forecast around 2:00 in the afternoon. It showered while I was there and then cleared up and when I left to go home, the sun was out. I got about ten minutes away and noticed the sky was ominous by where we live and out by the land. Once I got back here to town, I pulled over and took some pics! Looking North.

Looking NorthEast

A bit more East

And North again

I could hear it thundering after I got home and waiting for Woodchuck. We were supposed to go to the land to pick some stuff up, but I thought for sure he would say we could wait. Nope. I drove right into this beast!!!! It was SO bad, people were pulling over, or driving with hazards on, and I could barely see the lane lines.

So we hung out for a bit while we waited for it to calm down. The spiders aren't stupid, they know a good barn when they see one. The guy that did our concrete in the barn mentioned how many spiders we had in there, and he didn't seem appreciative of that, lol.

I recently went with  my oldest son up to Michigan City to check out a new business that opened a few months called Center Health. I have been wanting to get there, but my health kept getting in the way. I am still practicing not getting upset or feeling like I am missing out when that happens. I have to have complete faith in the Universe that things are happening in the correct time. So we spent about an hour there, and then we were going to go around looking for a bathroom cabinet for hi

s newly remodeled bathroom. He needs something to store his extra toilet paper, Kleenex, etc. But after we left and hit the massive thrift store, he wasn't doesn't doing too well. He had a hernia repaired a few years ago and the spot keeps bothering him on and off. Now look, he does not take care of himself in the least bit. He doesn't eat well, he doesn't do his stretches or exercises, he doesn't go out and get fresh air and sunshine, and he is skinny, skinny, skinny. But I had never seen him in the pain he was in, at least since that hernia was fixed. 

He could barely walk, but wanted to try and get around the shop.....that was four floors. I checked in with him in every room (it's in a previous convent space), and by the time we got to the last room, he needed to sit down. So that was it, I was taking him home so he could rest and use an ice pack! But while I was walking around in the upstairs rooms,  I saw this damage--which is just heartbreaking! This building is absolutely beautiful and fantastic and historical and I hate to see this. They catch a lot of flack because the building is an organized hoard, and their prices are crazy high. They do get a lot of shoppers come in from Illinois, but I don't know how much is bought. The past few times I have gone, I may have bought a few things collectively, except for this time when I bought nothing. Honesty, and it pains me to say this, it's not a place that I will go back to.

So we headed home, and I couldn't even talk him into stopping to grab a lunch to go. For him to refuse food? He must have really been in pain! We were supposed to get storms later in the afternoon, but an hour after I dropped him at home (which is just a couple of blocks away from us), the storms clouds started moving in. This was looking North/Northeast.

He gets anxious in storms, always has, and he started texting me. I always tell him to get to his basement if he hears the sirens, but he never does because he's too afraid of the spiders. Me? I run my stupid ass outside in every kind of storm and record it 😂😁I was even recently telling Woodchuck that a weather page I follow on FB was looking for people to put weather cameras up and I was tucking that away in the back of my brain for later on at the land. He refused, stating that he would forget about that camera and it would likely catch him pee'ing outside somewhere. Well alrighty then. Idea of weather camera untucked from my brain now! 

One thing that fascinates me about storms, and really any naturally occurring thing around me, is watching the process. The process of development, of movement, of growth, and seeing the steps of change and how quickly things can change. This was looking South AFTER my previous picture of looking North.

And soon, it looked like this. Same view, looking South.

And it just continued on that way....

And like that, the downpours came and went. I do believe we are still considered in a drought situation, and I do see the flooded area on the land starting to dry up, but these rains have been nice to replenish!

A good friend of mine was recently listing Amethyst Cathedrals that her son was selling. I have ALWAYS wanted one, and the bigger the better! But I don't have the thousands of dollars they cost for those really big ones, so I lucked out and grabbed their smallest one for just $45! These precious babies went through her house fire and survived unscathed! Can you feel that energy coming off of it?! What transformative, steadfast, POWER I hold in my hands. What a reminder to us all that the world is on fire, and maybe everything we know and everything we thought we knew as solid and grounded is changing, but we come out of it strong and sparkling.

I also recently donated a couple of pieces of art to an event for their silent auction being held in August. Before you go and question why in the world I would donate what I did, it's because it fit the theme and the band. These pieces were fun to make, though they were made originally for the Bizarre Bazaar we used to participate in and got screwed over by. It is on our wish list to find a replacement show for that one, starting next year.

I do wish that the places we donate art to would let us know how it went with it, but I understand that they put a lot of time and energy into the event itself and can't follow up and keep track. I always wonder if my stuff gets tossed if nobody bids on it, kept for someone affiliated with the event? Who knows! Just gotta cut the strings and let it go!

This one was made with a thrift store doll that I....well....I took her apart. She naturally came apart, I didn't break her, but just used her pieces in different ways from their intended purpose! I wrapped a large, wooden craft spool in some light green jute, applied Spanish moss and real leaves, and finish it was some paint, a fly and a bat. 

This was her arm! I filled this small pottery piece with floral foam, added various kinds of moss, a resin skull, her arm, real leaves...and the dirt is used, dried coffee grounds.

It's time to head back to the land to get some more work done! This yellow agrimony is everywhere and it is native.

My favorite, witchgrass.

I also took my handmade wreaths back to the land and the forests are now fancy. I had intentions of selling these, and did take them to a couple of shows, but they did not sell. I gave to friends what they wanted and gave the rest back to the land where they came from.

We have more primrose now than I remember ever having before, which is good! Native.

I nearly missed the blooming of the Bee Balm/Wild Bergamot!!! I have been busy working out there and Woodchuck didn't tell me until AFTER we left that when he mowed the fire break path, he saw that the watershed is full of yellow and purple! DUDE!!!! But I made it in time 😍

We will need to take a closer look at this Maple the next time we are out there because it's not over the path and I don't know if it broke or not.

My current project, while waiting for Woodchuck to help me remove some of the invasive grasses from the pond bank, is to pull Wild Carrot. This stuff really takes over if you let it go! And it is non-native, introduced from the usual European and Asian areas. So far I have pulled three bags of it and still need to make it out on the watershed and back part of the land to pull from there. On our most recent trip there though, Woodchuck came to find me to we could leave, and he asked me how to tell the difference between wild carrot/Queen Anne's Lace and things like Poison and Water Hemlock. We do have Water Hemlock at the land, and it is mixed in with the wild carrot, so it gave me the chance to teach him the differences!

The wildflowers on the watershed are in color now, and will be for awhile yet!

I actually don't know what this flower is 👇My app won't pull anything up. I was wondering if it was some sort of Coreopsis, but the petals don't match any that I can pull up that are native to Indiana. I only found one.

These are more of the rosin-weed flowers.

I forgot this ones name for a bit. It took posting in the native plant group last year to finally figure it out! Round-headed Bush Clover! Native and lovely! I cannot remember though if I have ever caught it blooming.

With the coming Full Moon, my brain has been on fire and my nervous system in overdrive. I am just trying to feel what I am meant to so that I can let it go...hopefully once and for all. I am seeking out places of silence lately, my brain just can't handle much excess noise. So this is the perfect place for me to be when I can be.

One thing I am noticing is that plants don't like to be caged in. It doesn't matter if that cage isn't touching them, is an actual cage that lets air flow and light in, or if it's metal or plastic. I can absolutely see a difference in how they grow. It's like they hold themselves back from growing when caged. Is that because they can sense the boundary? The material? Or let's go out on a limb here and wonder if they interpret my intentions of keeping them safe from animals and mowers and that they should stunt themselves? ANYTHING is possible, we just might not have the understanding yet to see of all those possibilities. My heart and mind is wide open to understanding the natural world around me better. But my point being about this plant, Lead plant, that Woodchuck nearly mows it over every year, and I would love to see if this will spread! But if I cage it, will that signal it to stunt? I would love to go out there and hold its little leaves and talk with it awhile to learn more about what it needs. 💚💜

I intended while out on this walk to fix the trail cam. I found an extra strap, and will use that since these zip ties are temporary and will eventually become brittle and break off, but today? The more I sweat, the more it calls in the mosquitoes and they are eating my hands up. I will replace this later in the season when they have died down a bit.

I was greeted to a very large butterfly, a Tiger Swallowtail of sorts, on my way back out. The world around us is so full of color! I am grateful to be able to see it. 

I spy some of my native roses blooming, though I cannot reach them since they are overhanging the ditch. Just as well! I am sure there will be some hanging over land that I can see another time, and the wildlife can utilize these. I can also see bittersweet and grapevine that needs to be removed. Sigh. So much to do and so little time, and very little help.

I think this might be Joe-Pye. We have less of it this year than usual, but a large amount of boneset!

We also have a large amount of Sassafras trees growing.

The White Avens are going to seed now.

These crazy looking aphids looked very patriotic! Some were red, some were blue.

Heading off the watershed now, but thankfully not back to reality quite yet.

I turned around to take one more look at the watershed, and noticed that this Oak tree is full of grapevine. Sigh. Adding that to the list of things to take care of.

Back to work on the pond bank, even if it is just for a few minutes. This Widow Skimmer dragonfly was taking a break from being mosquito control.

And I only found one Velvetleaf to pull, though I know there was another a couple of weeks ago. The deer like to eat them though, so maybe that is what happened to it.

The bouquet of horrors today is Fox Tail! While it is lovely, it is non-native and the grass gets TALL and forms large clusters that are hard to remove. It is one that I asked Woodchuck to help me dig out soon. In the meantime of that, I am cutting the seed heads off.

Woodchuck had been up at the barn working out and putting stuff away, but also making this cool antennae for his stereo. I am glad that he kept the stereo! He had had it before we met, but I have good memories of listening to it! He got rid of the cassette and CD player portions and took the rest to the barn. He didn't have to make any holes in the barn for the antennae! He fished the wire through the small gap where the walls meet the roof, and then used a strong magnet to attach the conduit frame to the metal siding! 

Now that I am able to lift my arm and use it a bit more, I am back to trying to get things done around the house. I have no idea when we are moving, all I know is that I am just going to get this shit done now and if there is time before the move, I will enjoy the fruits of my labor. I have had a 5 gallon bucket of animal bones sitting in the workshop for a STUPID amount of time. I thought Woodchuck knew how to clean them. He said he knew how to clean them. But he did not know how to properly clean them. He mixed some chemicals and left them outside in it......and one or more of those things should not have happened. It is like they are being dissolved. They are chalky and brittle and super white. I haven't had the time or energy to deal with them, but figured it is best to do so now before we move. 

So I took a handful and rinsed them until pieces of the bone stopped flaking off in the water. Once that stopped, I laid them out on this handmade screen that always cuts me (😂) and left them in the workshop to dry out with the dehumidifier. Once dry, I took one of the rib bones and brushed on Weldbond glue and then let that dry. While it did work to help strengthen the bone, it gave a bit of shine that I didn't care for. I actually liked that dry, chalky look, though not the super white color. What to do about that? Hmmmm. Anyway, I am hoping to bead the bones eventually! Anything that can't be beaded will be utilized for some other art or creation.

I also added on to this mandala, not really feeling like I left it in a finished state before. I left it a bit unfinished before because Woodchuck told me that maybe I should make some less blingy stuff. My mother told me that I can't make for me, I have to make for the public who would be buying it. I don't even know how to do that, how to figure out what the public wants. That changes anyway. I used to try and figure it out, used to follow the trends, and that is soul sucking. Art and handmade things are so subjective. I would not take soaps to a show and people would ask for soaps. I would take soaps to a show and none of them would sell. So that's when I started making what I loved. Now I just need to get it all seen.

My girl, Pierogi, has been super snuggly lately! She is doing new things that she never did before, like letting me brush her every night. You used to get anywhere near her with a brush and she'd lash out at you! And now she finishes the evening with laying down next my leg on the couch. On this day, she was upset that I wasn't spending every moment with her.

I have spent a bit of time pulling weeds from around the patio, but have to be careful because even if I don't use my arm, any jarring to my body goes right to it. I was greeted by a beautiful toad!

After being told numerous times over numerous years that it would be cleaned up around the shed, I finally took matters into my own hands. I couldn't finish it all, but I made a big dent in it. On my way to the dumpster, I thought I saw a tiny white rock, or egg, but turns out it was a little puff ball/fungus

The outside temperatures also calmed down a tad before rising again, so I took advantage of that and made soaps. This hand mixer is SO old! Over a decade, and that's pretty impressive considering that it needs to run for hours at a time when mixing soap! But I noticed that it is starting to sound weird, and gets really hot, and there's a crack in the body of it. So this was the last batch it would see. Fare thee well, trusty mixer!

I also found a canister for our rice! I am so excited about that, I have been looking at resale shops and discount stores for a long time! We had found one, but in my efforts to get the label off of it....well, let's just say that I made the canister unusable. So the rice got fancy.

We had a streak of dry weather, with storms in the forecast days ahead, so I got back to painting the deck. I was able to finish the deck floor boards and the top banister. Still a but more to do, but this really bothers my arm and neck and down my side. I have also painted a bit more inside, but again, my arm and I am still waiting for Woodchuck to finish taking down his taxidermy. I don't want to have to keep pulling the same paint color out five times. Let's just get each space done all at once!

The coming full moon (this moon is not full in this picture) is scrambling my brain, shocking my nervous system, keeping me awake at night, and is making the drivers even more crazy than usual (I nearly got t-boned twice this morning at the same intersection because people ran the light). But the moon is always lovely to look at, I just need to stay in my house any time a Full Moon comes around.

I recently had to go on a road trip adventure by myself. I have mentioned before that I have a bit of travel anxiety. I LOVE the idea of traveling, but some things have happened along the way of my life when traveling that triggered this feeling now. I also LOVE my home. We work hard for it, it is full of things that comfort me and I enjoy looking at, and of course, there is my kitty. But the road trip was necessary, and luckily local enough that I could breath through my panic (also, thank GAWD for Google Maps!). It also gave me a lot of time to think and just look at the world around me as I traveled. 

The first stop was to the broken electronics drop-off site, then over to the Auction place for pick up. Even though I had bid on a few things, I lost out on all of them except for one. What I won was a small set of various pins and necklaces and a keychain. This pin made the trip worth it! It is a pigeon that says, " I will shit on everything you love." 😂 There is a back story that makes this all the more funny to us.

I made a couple of other stops in that town and then headed South/Southeast to the land....about a 45 minute drive. I only had one moment of panic, and was able to quickly work through it. I have only been to the land by myself 3 times in the 5 years we've owned it. Woodchuck does not like me being there alone, but he has to get past that. Wild animals, fluke accidents, nefarious people....I need to be able to live. So I went to work on pulling the Wild carrot and figured I wouldn't push myself. I had one garbage bag in the trunk of my car and if I filled that and was still feeling decent, I would pull another one from the barn. 

I really enjoyed myself, it was so peaceful! I was surrounded by Indigo Buntings while I worked, as well as tiny toads, and large spiders.....like this Rabid Wolf Spider who was, with the leg splay, at least 2-3 inches.

I also found this Hazelnut that would otherwise get whacked down during the ditch clean out happening soon. So it's my hopes that we can transplant it.

After a couple of days of being able to have the air conditioning off, I turned it back on.....and noticed a strange sound. I couldn't tell if it was coming from the inside or outside, so I went out and looked and noticed a bunch of bullshit Creeping Charlie was vining all around the base and into it. There was also water leaking backwards from the tube coming out of the bottom of it. It needs a good cleaning and since we are putting the house on the market, we set that up for next week. Turns out the company that installed the unit went out of business two years after our project, but another company took over and they are the ones coming out. I did pull all of the vegetation out, not only from around the outside unit, but also along the house and it's amazing what my intuition is tapped in to. If I had not pulled the vegetation, I would not have found THIS. I wonder if my neighbors heard me when I found it? He assures me that this isn't an active line anymore, which is a damn good thing, but also then, why would it be left?

We talked about how he gave up, how he expects something to last forever with no maintenance or upkeep, how he will NOT be allowed to make, fix, or touch anything at the new house. There is just no reason for this. If you take the time to cut it, take a few extra moments to remove it or whatever needs to be done. He says he's enjoying working on the house again and sprucing things up, and I am sure I said something snarky back that was along the lines of "this is why I can't have nice things."....anyway. This got added to his to-do list.

So that's it! The usual, which isn't all bad, but includes an awful lot of unnecessary bullshit. Thanks for being on this adventure with us!