Being with the Plants, part three

2017 Just after my birthday in mid-July, my son and I were traveling back home from a visit with my mother. There's a little farm shed on the side of the road. It's self-serve. I've always been curious about that place. I'm feeling pretty frisky since my backseat is full of birthday loot and we got an epic road-trip on the horizon. It's a pretty fly-high moment. We're coming up on the self serve shed. I have to stop this time.

       I pull off the road into the one car wide horseshoe drive in front of the farm shed. Inside there's a cooler, various non perishables for sale, a cash lockbox, a video camera aimed at the cashbox, and a very large cooler. Inside, there's several sandwich bags stuffed with fresh herbs- 2 basil, 1 curly parsley- $1 ea. I buy all three and a beautiful cabbage for $2 and a recycled plastic tub of kale for $2, which was everything in the cooler! I'm feeling like the queen of the universe with all of these beautiful vegetables, and for these prices, too.
       We're all loaded up, and my son and I are having one of our lively debates about something. I'm sitting in the driver's seat, just sort of surveying all of the good fortune, moreover *fun*, that is being experienced. I decide it's time to keep on heading home.  What could be next? I put the car into drive and accelerate slowly, just peering down the long, very long driveway down to my left, for any cars... And there She is, in a tall stand of weeds boarding the driveway-

       Motherwort. In full flower. In mid July.

A big, fluffy substantial stand of it.

It looked like this patch is mowed back from the road on occasion. Whomever must have mowed it back at just the right stage of the Motherwort's growth to send her flowering cycle out one month! It just keeps getting better. I have my tincturing supplies in the car! My son is used to this. Out he pulls the tablet again. Mom's gonna' be a while. So thankful for this experience, for the medicine for the year. Yes, we get one shot to make our medicine for the whole year, 'till the next seasonal cycle.

       A similar thing happened just last week, which is what got me starting this whole posting to begin with. Because, one the things that I just get so tickled about is my ability to ID a plant on the side of the road while I'm driving. It's so much fun to know certain Plant Folk that well. People always say, "How do you know it's that?" Well... I just do. Like spotting the Ginko leaves on the ground while I was driving through town with my son to go on errands. And I had really, really wanted to make some Ginko tincture this year for my brain. But, it had just kind of slipped out of my ideas of what would be possible for me to get done this autumn. Then, I spotted the leaves! That time I had to get the vodka while we were out. No problem! They should be harvested when they're yellow anyway. Not the most perfect looking leaves, but their vital life force energy feels intact, and I am advised that the leaves will yield a medicinally robust preparation. I'm again, so thankful and looking forward to trying it.

Ginko biloba tincture for the year's use :)