The meadow is so beautiful.

June 16 2020

Poppies, daisies,

I want to call the blue flowers bachelor buttons

or cornflower,

but don't know if that is right.

If it had some bulbs that flowered earlier,

or some later flowering perennials it would be a joy all year round.

I let my garden beds get completely out of control this year. I fell into paralysis when the shit hit the fan and just watched the buttercups and bindweed take over. It was also a cold spring here and my Reynaud's syndrome made me reluctant to get my hands cold (at least this is my excuse).

Now the buttercups are a foot high

, and the bindweed is crawling so high up the rhododendrons it is hard to pull it down, let alone dig it up. Both of them are spreading everywhere.

They are far stronger than I am, and are cropping up in new places.

I made an attempt last week.

There were lots of bees and others, which I was happy to see, and I tried to move slowly.

This wasn't enough and despite my gloves, got stung on the back of my hand by something.

It was itchy, the whole back of my hand was swollen, and is now a weird color. It seems to be better today.

It makes me reluctant to go out there again.

We have a patch of grass lawn, it is nice when family and friends come over to be able to sit in the shade of the big magnolia on that patch of grass (who knows when that will happen again?).

We haven't fertilized it this year, we have lost interest in having it 'perfect' as well as losing interest in a lot of other things. We have been lucky that the weather has alternated between fairly warm with sun, and reasonably warm with rain.

It seems to be doing OK,

but the creeping buttercup are invading.

These are such strange times.