Who needs sleep?

Sleeping is a thing we are supposed to do.

It reenergizes you for the next day. 

I am an cyclical sleeper.

This means I can sleep like a log for quite a few nights and then I am wide awake... or wake up and can't get back to sleep on other nights.

As a child I never had this problem. Maybe it is because my brain decides to be overactive and have its own clock. Or maybe it is my age.

Or maybe it is hubby in the other room waking up at all odd hours and sitting with the light on. I'll get up and check on him [I can see him from my bed in the living room].

1:30AM

"What's up?"

"I dunno. Can't sleep." 

I watch him for a bit and note the struggle he is having. We aren't talkers in the middle of the night. More like 'grunters'.  Sometimes his meds seem to make him wakeful at night. It is a killer for me on those nights I sleep like a child.

At 3 AM he asked to get dressed. I helped him. 

Lucky me! 

I remembered that the Perseid Meteor Showers were supposed to be peaking. I got hubby dressed and warmed him up a cup of coffee. Then I trotted outside and stood in the yard. I watched the NE sky and suddenly saw a 'falling star'. 

I went back in and made his coffee for him as well as my decafe. 

"Whatchya doin'?"

I held up a tripod and camera. Why pass up a sleepless night? May as well make good use of it.

The moon was very bright so the meteor shower wouldn't be as evident with the naked eye. 

Below is our place among the few pines we have and a star trail of 15 minutes. The horizontal streaks are more than likely satellites?

The bathroom night light showed up through the windows of the house. The ghostly smudge in the driveway [bottom right] is me walking out with a cup of decafe.

I pointed the camera to the NE a bit better and tried shooting over our shed.

On the left there is a streak that starts, stops, and then continues. I think I am pretty sure that was a meteor!

Cool beans.

I don't know if the other streaks were also meteors, but I can pretend they were.

By the time 5AM rolled around, it was getting to be foggy. I had run back and forth to the house to pour hubby his coffee and to make him his breakfast. The camera was on a timer and did its thing without me.

I took 5 15 minute LiveComp shots and decided on these two. 

The last shot was a quick one as the skies lightened. In this shot, there was an airplane flying over the house.

By 7, hubby was ready for his morning nap. I helped him to bed and adjusted his 02 hoses. Charlie and I piled into the car [in my PJ's!] and drove to my favorite spot to watch the sun come up.

The sun was already up and shining, however we had valley fog which is amazing to see too.

My first glimpse of the ridge didn't seem to promising...

but as I got higher on the ridge, it looked more and more scenic.

I parked at the cattle gates to a large pasture and stepped out with Charlie. I did a little happy dance and enjoyed the views.

The sun came up a bit higher...and the trees started to glow.

I really really ...really

do miss my morning walks and drives on the ridgetops the landscape always leaves me a bit breathless even after all of these years.

Ahhh, and finally, there IT was...

...and in black and white...

I couldn't decide which shot I liked best.

I do love this land that I call home. 

I promised myself I'd go back to bed and take a nap when I got home.

But.

There were chores to do, tanks to fill, lunch to make because today is Wednesday and that means Fishing/Adventure Day for hubby. He looks forward to it so much that I can't tell him I am too tired.

So here we go....!

Just for fun b/c it is going to be so ....

dang hot and humid today... Here is some comparison shots of the flower gardens.

The East garden --> East side of the house.

This is the path through the East Garden. 
On the left side of the path, I have so 

many perennials. 

Blazing Stars come in 

after the daffodils, tulips, and 

iris plants.👇

I used broken bits of concrete pavers to make
my own path. This year I laid down cardboard
and then layered the mulch over the cardboard.
It worked pretty well this year!

This is how it looked in the beginning of May.

 

The Porch area... now...

and earlier this year....

The back step...

What greets you when you park at our house right now....

I have more gardens. They are considered my wild-ish gardens. I plant the seeds in mass -- I use a coffee can full of mixed seeds I collected from last year and dump in the dirt. I rake it and stomp it into the ground.
I do weed it until it is knee high and then I let the plants do what they want.

I simply mow around them and admire the colors and the amount of bees, birds, and other insects that are busy with the plants.

I guess I did this post because late in February next year if I am still on this Earth, I can look back and see how pretty the gardens were this summer.

Then I can plan to do something different for next year. I do have to say though, having pumpkin plants near the house has actually been quite fun. They really attract the bees and it is exciting to watch the pumpkins grow and guess what they will look like.

August is a time of change and at least for me it is a time to put up produce. The past few days I've been freezing veggies for this winter. Thankfully, there are enough produce markets around for me to pick up as much as I want. I haven't had time to do a vegetable garden for the past few years but still manage to freeze or dehydrate all of our veggies for the next several months.

Have a grand day...

Indoor Project

 

It happened again, an attack of the 'Creativity Bug'. I was walking in the last snowstorm and had seen the predictions for an extremally cold week following the snow. I decided to take a bag with me while getting the mail and find some things in nature to 'create' something with. I didn't even have any idea what I was going to do.

Sometimes creativity literally smacks me upside the head. I have to drop what I am doing and mess around to scratch the itch of imagination.

I had been reading some articles on toy photography that included all kinds of toys, but focused on the smaller posable toys. Did you know that is a thing? People photograph cars, model cars, model airplanes, Teddy Bears, and more. [I'm giving a nod to fellow blogger L.D. and his collection of old toy cars that he has been photographing in his new light box!]

I took a class in Still Life and enjoyed it. The variety of things one can do with Still Life is amazing and it doesn't cost anything really. It is fun and frustrating.

My journey in making things from weird stuff began when I wanted to do some Fairy Houses for my spring garden. I went to shops and was absolutely floored at how pricey a Fairy Garden could be. I decided then to make a non Fairy Fairy garden and some fun was born.

I wanted to go cheap. I wanted only materials I could find while on my walks. It is something I like to do when the weather is in the subzero range. It keeps my mind occupied and stirs my creative juices.

So here is 20 seconds of what I started, just for fun. You can skip it for sure....it is just some shots of the materials I used to get started.

I wanted to make a rope or perhaps a coiled miniature rug. So I even braided some dried grass. I learned something fun...
it braids much easier when it is damp. 

I gave up on going further as the grasses kept breaking, but I'll keep other materials in the back of my mind next time. I may collect some iris leaves towards the end of next fall to see if I can't weave something out of them.

I read about using plant leaves for weaving on another blog, thanks Boud!

Here is Maisie with her axe helping to build Acorn's new A Frame Home.

They decided to weave together some wild grass to use as a rope to pull more branches to the top of the A Frame.

Farmer Bob came by with a load of gnarly branches on his cart.

Hobby set down her camera and really got into the work!

Just add moss and more moss to fill in the holes and some bark...
it's messy work....

But it sure turned out cozy looking!

There he rests next to his little new house in the wild.

His friend Maisie heads out to the forest to cut some firewood.

All in a few days work!

[The trees were created from small scrub apple trees I found in the pasture. They really have character. 
I used clay as a base or in some cases medicine bottle tops. I took the cotton balls that came with the meds and dropped them in some paint and water then stretched it out to make something that looked like Spanish Moss. See photo below. It was messy, but fun.]

The project was cheap, easy, and mostly very cost effective. I only used items I had on hand.

See what happens when I'm stuck indoors? 

Garden Garden

I do have a small veggie garden. Here is a photo of it this spring. We cut the size way down from all the past years to about half. 

What you are seeing below is the area we use for a garden. On two sides it has hot wire for the mule's pasture. The red gates are what we call a 'catch' pen. Mules are sorted there for riding or trimming. When I pick one, they all want to come.

Out in the field is a round bale feeder from the days of long ago. I still use it to put hay in during the winter to keep them from trampling on it in muddy or damp weather.

The tree line in back is my upper neighbor's pasture for her goats. Notice! NO weeds!

This photo is also just before Justin came to till the garden. 

After tilling. I planted squash, cukes, some odd flowers, and corn very late. A huge concern was the heat and dry June we were having.

July 3rd

So I'd done some watering in the evening and wrung my hands. This corn was NOT knee high by the 4th of July. To the left of the garden, I keep trimming the weeds with a scythe.

July 13th. I have free range tomatoes coming up from last year. We have had rain here and there to the tune of 3 inches at a time. 

July 22

Believe it or not, the yard was just mowed a few days ago here. Yuck, looks like I have to do this by hand today. Siera is the mule in the field. 

The corn is much taller and we have hopes for sweet corn! The cukes are just budding and so are the squash.

I had squash last year, lots of them. So many that some began to turn and I had to toss them. I rolled those mushy ones out into the pasture where about 10 plants are flowering. So, I will have more than one kind of squash.

Here is the north of our house. Nice and tidy looking. The 4 wheeler is my trash hauler, weed hauler, and fence supply hauler.

Here is the part I usually don't let anyone see. The ugly crushed garage and... piles of projects that 'were' going to get done. In the weeds rests a camper that someone was 'gonna' take apart and recycle and take the stove out and put it ... um, somewhere. It simply has sat in the weeds for many years. The garage was to be torn down and he was 'gonna' salvage 'stuff' that was in there.  

To me, it is nothing but a huge eyesore and I have looked into hiring someone to come and tear it down to the foundation and clean the area up.

There is a nice concrete pad under the garage that would make a great spot to set a tiny building on as a studio or summer guest room.

The Boss keeps telling me he will 'get to this' pretty soon. 10 years later? 

So I create my own pretty spaces where I can enjoy color and beauty and ignore the ugly as I can do nothing about it without causing a huge problem. 

My house is my castle and so are my little gardens. 
Next year, I will go back to having sunflowers a gazillion zinnias, and cosmos. I just need places to put them!

I do love gardening. I love creating pretty spaces.

Oh!

I'll catch up on the Forest Garden aka by the kids as the Secret Garden later.

Beautiful mornings....

 Just some beauty to ponder.

The shots are of the same general area on different days...

Let's just say that I enjoy morning walks most mornings.

Now that the weather is chillin' out, Charlie and I still often go for our walk to the ridge to see the sun come up.

But at least now, the corn has been harvested and we can walk out on the cropland.
The view to the southwest.

The view to the east..slightly out of focus!

The other morning... I just had to go out and enjoy the colors. This was about 45 minutes before sunrise as the stars are still visible.

Here you go.

Something pretty in this messy world.

Enjoy.

Snow Storm!

Our tiny cottage as viewed from the open pasture south of the house.

And here are the mules having their breakfast. It was getting hard to find a dry enough spot to feed them since we had approximately an inch of rain before the snow began to fall. The snow was super wet and heavy.

They watch me come out with the 'hay' sled and follow me to wherever I am going to spread their meals. The three older mules follow me away from the rest as I set out their grain in their pans. It is almost funny as to how routine feeding time has become.

Charlie loves snow. He just loves to romp in it and stick his head under large clumps of grass. His sniffer never quits when he is out and about.

Mr. Sven was not having any of the blustery weather. He watched out his goat 'door' and stayed inside with his hay and nice dry bedding.

Charlie and I walked up to where the hill starts on the driveway to look up the hill.

It looked like a fine day to stay home and let mother nature have her way. The winds picked up and we headed back to the house.

Water was standing everywhere under the snow and the ground was saturated.

That wet spot in the driveway is something I hope to get fixed next year. In fact this section of the driveway needs new gravel as it turns into a mushy quagmire each spring that is nearly impossible to drive through until it dries up.

That brings us to today which is Thanksgiving.

No visitors, no family stuff going on today. It will be the usual fair.
Hubby asked for Lasagna for supper.
Seems when the kids were young we had company and now that the grands are more grown up everyone has their own thing to do.

Photo from 2006 Thanksgiving.

Have a nice day, whatever you choose to do.