How is it that I can be trying to read in bed, nodding off from exhaustion after a day of digging and weeding and mowing, decide to turn out the light, and then not be able to go to sleep?
I don’t get it.
Needless to say, last night’s sleep would be rated with one star out of five. I got some, but not enough.
Getting up at 5:15 am has its perks. In the space of about 30 seconds I saw the moon go from this:
to this:
to this:
I was shooting so quickly that I didn’t realize the moon had disappeared. Poof! Gone.
Earlier in the week, I showed a photo of one of the plants that grows in the back forty. I didn’t know what it was, but you did, thank you! It’s mullein, which is used in herbal medicine, often for respiratory problems. The flowers are used to treat minor wounds and scrapes.
It grows wild around the property – I must have seen 10 plants yesterday.
It’s amazing how many wild plants there are here on the property. The space between the cultivated and the wild contains fleabane, milkweed, wild blackberries, mullein, wild honeysuckle and wild roses. And that’s just what’s blooming at this moment. I love my gardens, but I find I’m loving these beauties just as much. We’ve deepened our friendship, especially as I have become more knowledgeable about just who and what they are.
Mullein grows very tall. The first year, the leaves develop. The second year, the stalks grow and beautiful flowers appear. To give you an idea of how tall this plant can grow, check out this photo of our tallest mullein with Don at its side.
Don is well over 6 feet 4 inches tall. That would make this particular mullein almost 6 feet tall!
I love learning about plants. There is always something to learn, isn’t there? We’ve lived here nearly nine years and I keep finding out new things about our land and the plants that grow here.
I’m glad you enjoyed my little video yesterday. More will be coming.
Don’t forget to visit my post entitled A New Path (In More Ways than One.) Oxytrol for Women and More Magazine are launching an Open A New Door contest for women over 50. Go on over and read the details and enter!
Happy Sunday.
I have those no sleep nights also. Sometimes it seems like I am too tired to sleep, if that makes sense??? Love the mullein photos. It would be nice in back of a garden with some purple foxglove. Take a nap today.
That must be what happened. Too tired to sleep!
Hi Claudia We didn’t get to see the super moon last night-overcast. There will be two more, August 10th and September 9th. Maybe will get to see it then. Hope so. Beautiful.
I guess I saw the super moon this morning!
Yes, you did!!
I have been awake since 2 this morning California time…did my ironing, figured out what I needed to do today…wondered if you had written your blog yet. Need to go do yard work now before the heat turns my neighborhood into a ghost town…wonder what all those people do in their houses!?! I’m the only one on my block that has real flowers (roses and English garden flowers) in the front yard of my desert home. If the fire department doesn’t answer a 911 call I don’t remember if anyone even lives in the houses! I call it real estate gone to waste…all that dirt no one is using.
I love seeing the plants that grow in your yard.
Thank you, Judy!
I have that growing all over our property too:) and it’s just now blooming.
It’s really neat, isn’t it, Dawn?
I’ve been reading a bit about foraging lately and wonder if you have been eating any of your lovely “weeds”? I recently read Eating Wildly, by Ava Chin, about urban foraging.
No, I haven’t. Something keeps me from doing that!
Oh Claudia – I feel for you. I have a terrible time with insomnia (and I even take prescription meds to help me sleep). Each week, I usually have one night with absolutely no sleep…not a minute. I’ve read so many articles about “sleep hygiene”. Oh my, I guess I just have to live with…yawning right now. xo J PS loved your garden video
I’m yawning today, too. Darned sleepless nights!
How can something so pretty as mullein be considered a weed? Did you know that mullein seeds can live for up to 100 years and can survive almost any conditions?
Hope you get some sleep tonight. Hate when that happens.
Well, I don’t consider it a weed. It’s awfully beautiful and majestic.
Claudia, do you realize that the image of Don in the field could be from 1860, 1920, 1950……..it has a timeless look about it. So does Don. I wish his agent would get busy. Your readers would like to see him in another production.
In England, I saw mullein cultivated as a garden plant. Dandelions, as well. I remember a beautiful PINK dandelion.
The horticultural definition of a weed is “a plant out of place.” If you don’t think it’s out of place, it’s not a weed. Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder.
xo
Hey, I’m not calling it a weed. I think it’s beautiful. It just happens to grow naturally here. I can totally see it growing in a garden. In fact, I wouldn’t mind adding it to my big garden bed. So visually interesting!
I like that photo of Don, too. If anyone lives near New Haven CT, he’ll be a production of Our Town in October…
Oh, I know that you’re not! I was meaning to support you. I love the way that you find beauty and value in all things natural.
I should have written, “If one doesn’t think it’s out of place, it’s not a weed.”
An example, for instance, would be Mountain Laurel: in a garden, it’s beautiful and desirable. To a dairy farmer, it’s poison.
Sorry for the confusion.
Oh, don’t worry! There were two comments about some people considering it a weed, it was clear the commenters did not agree with that, and I started to wonder if I had used the word ‘weed.’ At one time, before I had this property, I might have done just that!!
Funny how your perspective changes as you get older and wiser. xoxo
I don’t remember seeing that plant here..maybe I’ll take a walk along the stream down back and look for it..we are expecting storms here today..I love all my wild flowers..I agree that any plant with such pretty flowers on it is not a weed to me..I think I have said before that I consider them a gift from Mother Nature..I am only 5 foot tall..if I were to ever meet you and Don I would probably get a pain in my neck from looking upwards to talk to you..lol
We have those same storms coming – for the next three days, apparently! One of my best friends is 5 feet tall, if that!
What a great plant and always fun to learn more about them. Tall, cause Don is super tall! LOL. I hate those sleepless nights and I’ve been having way too many lately. I feel completely off schedule and out of sorts. Hoping this week gets me back to feeling better. I am getting lots of books read though!
hugs,
Linda
At least you’re catching up on your reading! Those nights are so frustrating!
I have not been able to get a very good moonshot. I got up at 3 AM the other morning to go to the bathroom and tried it again. No luck. Beautiful pictures. Pretty flowers. Happy Sunday.
I can never get a moonshot at night. I must not have the right kind of lens or something. Happy Sunday to you, Missy.
I’ve experienced that on occasion too, Claudia. I’m lying there reading or on my laptop for a while and then find myself struggling to keep my eyes open. OK, that’s it. I close my book. I turn off the light. I get all settled – and then promptly lie there for an hour or two, unable to sleep. It’s as frustrating as it is baffling. I think good rest is as important as good nutrition. I hope someday doctors will figure out how more of us can really achieve a really good recuperative rest on a regular basis, because right now insomnia – in its various states – seems to be a problem for so many people…
It sure is. Don has sleeping problems at times. So do I.
I feel the same way about our place. The longer I live here, the more I find out about the plants that grow here and HAVE BEEN growing here for decades. Lord knows, I didn’t plant them. But I love learning about them. Identification is the hardest part for me.
Amazing to see how tall the Mullein grows.
I took some photos the other day — the sun was setting and could be seen in the sky in front of me, and the moon shone in the fading light behind me!
enjoy your day. Pat
That photo sounds gorgeous, Pat!
Mullein. I love learning about new plants. In fact, when we first moved to the mountains, I found a source for the wildflowers that grow in our county, and started marking which ones I’d found. Like birding, only the flowers don’t fly off as quickly. ;)
I watched the moon as the sunrise tinted the clouds pink this morning. Love your photos, Claudia!
Have a happy one,
Lin
I need to find a little book about local wildflowers, Lin. That’s a good tip!