on losing one’s mind, and finding it again

This is how most of this week month has been:

Out of focus. Meaning, the things that are actually deeply important to me? Uhhhhhhhh….

What are they again? I can’t see straight.

Basically, I have spent the past month or so working too hard, and not getting enough bliss time in. Hard to believe, when it’s only a part-time job, which, I do from home. Hard to believe when I have pretty decent self-maintenance habits: I eat pretty well (hardly any crap), I run several times a week, I give myself Reiki every day, and I do at least three to five Reiki treatments on other people every week (not counting Kevin – he gets Reiki every day). I don’t know how much of this is background stress (some pretty major things are up in the air in our lives, plus some loved ones are experiencing health issues), and how much is the changing of the seasons (the onset of fall, as I’ve gotten older, gets harder and harder…), and how much is just not really taking my needs seriously.

All I know is, Tuesday there may have been an episode of brain paralysis, followed by a minor emotional meltdown. There might have been another meltdown yesterday morning, followed by extra bonus meltdown in the afternoon. Two in one day! Excellent! Last night, Kevin gently suggested to me that I – brace yourselves – take breaks more often, and go outside with the camera. Today, I finally did so.

I went from this:

 

To this:

Oh. Okay.

 

Yeah.

I remember this.

Exhale.

 

Bees go all in for what they want.

Bluets don’t give up. September? “Fie!” they say.

Sumacs say, “Hold my beer and watch this shit.”

 

Asters got the memo that fall colors involve orange and red, and responded with an “oh yeah?”

“Sez who?”

 

The tall anemone follows suit, indulging in a little light purple…

…before saying “screw it” and exploding.

 

 

Only one eyeball left on the white baneberry.

And now, for yellow.

Oleander aphids on a milkweed pod…

…and stem.

 

 

As for the tree that fell at the base of our driveway: it’s in the burn pile now. In the background, on the edge of the field, lurks the feral bathtub.

stalking the feral bathtub

I’ve been so focused on reading the land at a larger level of scale lately – taking on whole stands of trees, whole hills and valleys in the woods – that I’ve really kind of neglected a lot of old friends: individual trees and perennials that live along the dirt road on the way to the mailbox. “There’s not much to see this time of year” would be the typical excuse, but we both know, that’s a lie. There is always something to see.

Like this milkweed pod’s husk. I remember when this pod was no larger than the tip of my pinky finger.

 

Beech buds are getting bigger every day.

 

Out by the road, the alders are up to their ankles in water, due to…

 

..The activities of the residents of not one, but two beaver lodges. This is the original lodge.

 

And this is the second one, maybe 60 feet away from the first. It’s the upgraded model.

 

Here’s the feral bathtub. It lives on the edge of the meadow, where That Bitch Irene dumped it after snatching it away from the burn pile last August. Irene broke its heart – you can tell it’s still recovering.

 

Exploding cattails are so appealing. “Lose your mind,” they say. “It will all work out.”

 

I could swear that while I was goofing off photographing ice in the brook, someone or something made a racket in the willow/alder thicket. I didn’t catch what, though: I backed off, thinking I might have disturbed the beavers.

 

Soon, Canadian Geese (as I like to call them) will be hanging out here (I know. I’m wrong. That’s not what they’re called.)

 

But not yet.

Where stream meets meadow.

Full moon on Thursday, folks. Are you ready for it?

Use these in a sentence: ragweed, question mark, bathtub

All my life, I’ve heard about ragweed. Haven’t you? If you grew up with someone with allergies, as I did; if you grew up hearing the whole house resonate with the sound of explosive sneezes all summer, as I did; if you married a guy allergic to everything that produces pollen, as I did, then you’ve heard of ragweed.
Do you have any idea what ragweed looks like?
Neither did I, until today. Welcome to common ragweed: Ambrosia artemisiifolia. Isn’t that a beautiful name? My otherwise enchanting flower guide – Newcomb’s – describes this as an “unattractive weed”.
Excuse me?

This fruit fly begs to differ. I’m cheating a little here – this photo is from late July, when I first discovered this plant growing out by the mailboxes.  Here’s a whole mass of ‘em from back then:


Some of them were flowering at the time:


By now, they’ve gone to seed:

Mystery solved!
Here is one of the last flower on a purple-flowering raspberry we’re likely to see this season. Soak it up while you can.


The False Solomon’s Seal berries are seriously turning red by now.


And the lily-of-the-valley berries aren’t far behind. I can’t remember if they go all the way to red or not. I guess I’ll find out.


When the brook jumped its banks and flooded the meadow, thanks to That Bitch Irene, it brought a lot of the unpaved shared driveway with it (to wit, all that gravel).


See all the branches it dumped along the edge of the un-mowed part of the meadow?


Here’s something else the floodwaters carried:

The bathtub. What a bathtub was doing in the burn pile, I don’t know.
Onwards. A single cattail has decided to sing Allelujah.



My first question mark. No, really, this is a kind of butterfly, called a question mark – Polygonia interrogationis .


And, to wrap up, a late-blooming black-eyed susan, with its requisite tiny white spider, as yet unidentified.

cluster bombs and flammable bathtubs

Today has been occupied by two projects: coming up with my own names for grasses and sedges, and adding things to the communal burn pile out in the meadow.

I’ve decided to learn about grasses.

The guide I’m using promises that I won’t need a hand lens or much experience with botany to identify species.  It will be a while before I manage to ID anything. For now, my tactic is just to discern what the different species ARE, and to give them homemade names, so that I can recognize them from day to day.

I call this one “chevron”, because of the herringbone pattern of the flower bits.
 

You know how you can buy a Christmas tree that’s been tightly wrapped in mesh, and you bring it home and clip the mesh off, and then the branches relax away from the trunk?

This one’s “honey bunches of oats”. My question is, is it the same thing as chevron, but it’s been around a bit longer and it’s relaxed? Or is it a different species?

What about this one? It seems like the middle point of chevron and honey bunches of oats.

Hm. I only just got started and already, I have no clue. Yay! The cognitive dissonance that is necessary for learning and growth! I alternate between being annoyed, and being delighted. Much like life itself. Let’s move on, shall we?

Here’s green chevron – not an imaginative name, but hey.

Here’s one that I think I actually may have correctly identified – I’ve posted about it before – Timothy grass (Phleum pratense)



Here’s golden christmas tree. I don’t think it’s the same as honey bunches of oats.

This delicate one is pretty distinctive.
Oh! Here’s one that I may have ID’d – barberpole sedge (Scirpus rubrotinctus). I prefer my name for it: cluster bomb.

Backing up for a broader view, check out the proliferation of cluster bomb in the picture below:

Interestingly, not 30 feet away, the species composition of the unmowed part of the meadow we’re in is totally different: ferns and milkweed.


Earlier, Charlie helped me read the intro to my new book.
On to the other project du jour.
Today I crossed the line from just blithely observing and appreciating Nature’s Bounty, to deciding to kill stuff. Enough is enough with the one-seeded bur cucumber. ‘Tis a vine, whose primary purpose in life seems to be to take over the universe, or at least, the hillside along our driveway – the scene of all the siberian iris, ferns, playtex tampon applicator flowers, spiderwort, wild madder, jack-in-the-pulpit, raspberry, black raspberry, and wild rose. 

I filled up the back of the Escape TWICE with great mounds of this stuff. I dumped it in the burn pile out in the meadow, which is very close to just looking like an impromptu junkyard. What with there being a bathtub in it, and all. I’m not sure how flammable that thing’s going to be.