Various garden pictures from spring and summer

I have a few things that I could write about, but I'm not a very good writer so I keep putting it off.  In the meantime, may I present some photos of my "semi-wild" garden from over the past few months.







 The path from my driveway up towards the door.

 Daylilies and hosta blooming, early July.

 Closeup of wildflowers - I think that these are Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus).

 Berry on a honeysuckle bush, with a small insect just to the left.

 Lilac flowers in May.

 My entire lilac bush in bloom.

 Seeds developing on a Red Maple in May.

 Siberian Iris

Pink geraniums and forget-me-nots

 Closeup of an unknown variety of iris

 Spiderwort (Tradescentia)

 Yellow irises (unknown variety) next to my driveway

A closeup of one of the yellow irises

Brief update

 It's been a while since I've blogged.  I've been going through a long period of several months when my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has been especially severe, and a lot of my energy has been spent coping with that.  This means that most of the other facets of my life have suffered at least a little bit - both the OCD and fighting it take a lot of mental focus and energy.  At times like these, I tend to become more withdrawn, have difficulty focusing on work and other everyday tasks, eat more (and gain weight accordingly), and spend much of my free time doing nothing in particular but thinking and going through tumultuous emotions.  

In spite of this, I have been able to give my Dad some help for his upcoming move.  Most of the assistance he has gotten, however, has come from a company that helps with arranging and packing materials in preparation for moves.  Their assistance has been vital - he is probably 75% of the way through packing, whereas him and me alone would be much less far along without professional help.  I can only go over to help on weekends, and he has both a bad knee and a bad back, so it's a bad idea for him to do too much.  Picture a 4-bedroom house with 2 stories and a basement, filled with 30 years of material accumulated by what was once a family of 5 that lived there, most of whom had at least slight "pack rat" tendencies, and you might have some idea of the size of the task.  A lot has been thrown away or donated, including books (Dad estimated that he had over 2000 books before we began the process).  Within a couple of weeks, though, most of the boxes and furniture should be moved into his new house, and then the task will be unpacking.


There's obviously nothing going on in the garden to photograph lately.  Overall, we've had a very mild winter, with little snow after the freak storm we had last October.  We've had some cold spells, but overall the temperatures have been less cold than usual.  Today has been very, very windy, and the power even went out for a short time.


Well, that's my brief update for now.