While the world was in Covid shutdowns, I’d begun making blog posts I called ‘Hermit Journals‘. While I’m glad we’re not still in lockdown, I miss making those entries. So I’m going to start them up again as a voluntary hermit. It means I have to slow down, to stop and take the time to observe more again. This ‘mindfulness’ is a good thing to do, and I’ve missed doing it. Now I’m calling the posts in this category my ‘Hermit Diary’, though.
We live way out in the middle of nowhere with the Ozark mountain hills all around us. It takes a good thirty minutes to drive out to pavement unless I’m in a hurry and not worried about the tires and suspension on the vehicle. A hurry would mean an emergency, so it’s usually a much more leisurely crawl down the dirt road. I’d be much more of a hermit if I didn’t have to go out weekly for groceries or work, though. Except for the need to earn a living, which requires me to go out, I could happily be a true hermit.
Bugs and Crawly Things
When I used to go outside to feed the horses or work in the garden, I’d often wander around looking for whatever caught my attention. I practiced mindfulness without paying any attention to doing so. The things I’m posting about today are the sorts of things I see.
Unusual Finds
Some things I see less often, and it’s really exciting to see something I rarely have seen or have never seen in person. You have to be open to actually noticing things to even know if it’s something new or not, though. Getting in too much of a hurry closes that option of seeing. And being in too much of a hurry means I don’t take the time to write these Hermit Diary entries, either.
Here’s a thing I saw the other day. This is an interesting bug, actually a beetle, called Necrophilia americana. I saw it scurrying to get beneath some leaves when I approached it, so I waited for it to come back out on the other side so I could get a pic. I took a short video of it and posted that to Instagram the other day.
Right off the bat, that first name should conjure up something to do with death. Their common name is Carrion Beetle. The beetle lays eggs on a dead animal, and the larvae maggots eats the dead thing. Usually larger carcasses like deer. They even eat the other species of maggots that eat the same thing. Gross, but interesting.
Bugs like this help forensic scientists make deductions about how long something has been dead, based on the kinds of things they find like this and the amount of time it takes for eggs to hatch and larvae to grow.
My next nature observation wasn’t a ‘bug’ but a snail. I saw it as I was walking away from the shed with the feed buckets, and had already gotten my mind set on getting the feed chore done. Remembering I wanted to practice mindfulness again, I made myself stop and take the time to enjoy this little snail.
I hate seeing these in my garden, but I enjoy seeing them out and about other places. I love the intricate patterns on their skin and shell, and their cool little antennae-stalks with eyeballs on top. Those short little antennae are for smelling things.
I’m trying to remember to stop and take the time to look more closely at things, and smell the flowers or crush the leaves more often. Otherwise life just becomes a blur of going from one thing on the to-do list to the next. The joy is in those between spaces for me. Okay, but are you asking what ‘crush the leaves’ does for me? LOL. The way the leaves smell is interesting in itself, but it also helps with identification.
Plants
I love plants in general, but I’ve been a sort of native plant enthusiast for a while. And, I’ve always taken a lot of interest in medicinal plants, whether they’re native or not. Back in the early 90’s, I even became a Certified Herbalist. While I continue to use plants, and I don’t have to remember mindfulness to notice them, I never did pursue the clinical herbalist path.
This is the flower of Passiflora incarnata, also called maypops or passionflowers. In the old garden beside the house, a white variety has taken hold there. It’s the only place I’ve found white ones, and only white ones grow in that area. All around everywhere else, the purple ones grow.
You can see that the white ones aren’t really entirely white, but are very close to it. I’m not sure yet whether the ones in this spot are genetically different, or if it’s because of the location where they’re growing. So I transplanted one last year to a pot and moved it to a different location. Once it blooms, I’ll be able to see if it’s still white. If it is, then I’ll plant it out in that new location and see what happens.
If I can consistently get white ones from root cuttings of the existing white ones, I’ll start selling them in my nursery. It’s doubtful that the seeds would return white flowers, though, because surely they’ll be pollinated by all of the purple ones around. It takes 2 recessive genes to get a white, and they can pass that on in root divisions. With seeds, its guesses for grabs which one will come up.
Woodland Plants
These next two plants are in my ginseng garden area. The first photo is Joe-Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum, and it’s one plant I’ve always hoped to find on our land but never could. This year a patch of it that decided to grow in the dappled shade between the creek and hill. I was excited to notice it earlier, on a good mindfulness day, and have been waiting for it to bloom. Butterflies and pollinators love them, so when it make seeds, I will scatter some in my garden by the house. It also has medicinal virtues.
The second photo is Hydrastis canadensis, or goldenseal, leaf with a berry still attached. Most of the berries on the other plants have already fallen, and I thought I wasn’t going to get a good picture of them this year at all. I was glad to see this one still hanging on.
Mindfulness in DIY Projects
Hubs loves putting his old recovered solar panels to use around here. One powers an electric fence on the chicken coop, and others power his solar exhaust vents in his shop. He made the vents with old auto radiator fans that he’d saved from years prior. This year, one of his fans locked up, so he wanted to go find some more. What better place to find things like that, than at the U-Pull lot in Rogers.
You can see the new fan in action in the short video I made once he’d wired it all back up. Mindfulness is also handy when there are other ways to use things ordinarily being discarded. We love finding practical ways to use things like that. But it takes time to think up ideas in order to even begin to evaluate them for practicality.
That’s it
Thanks for taking a trip with me through a day of mindfulness. I hope you, too, will take time to stop and crush the leaves, smell the flowers, or watch the kooky eye stalks of a snail.
Here’s some of my previous journal entries:
- Journal Entry | 2 August 2023
- Yard-Work Day | Hermit Journal
- Nature Journal | Still the Mind to See and Hear
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Author/Artist Info
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I make Paleo Paints from the lightfast pigments foraged from Madison county, Arkansas, creating under the pseudonym Madison Woods. Most of the colors I use comes from rocks gathered from our own creeks here at Wild Ozark. I outsource titanium for white, lapis for blue, and grow garden thyme for yellow.
My inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration. My work is a partnership with the land. Immersing in her color, absorbing inspiration, taking communion. A painting begins with a foray to collect rocks, soot and bone. Each pigment, alone a portrayal of beauty, combined in a painting, becomes a whole reflection of the very soul of the Ozarks.
My Portfolio is HERE
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I’m also a REALTOR® with Montgomery Whiteley Realty, under my real name Roxann Riedel. If you’re thinking of moving to the Ozarks of Arkansas and would like me to be your Buyer’s Representative, email, text, or call me at (479) 409-3429! And if you’re moving away from or selling property in Madison, Newton, or Carroll county, I’m happy to be your Listing Agent.