Some flowers seen during my walks.
Taken with a variety of cameras and lenses
Flowers
Fixing my garden
I should start by saying that I dislike gardening. My late wife was the gardener in the family. She absolutely loved gardening (particularly growing roses) and spent a lot of time in the garden. My role was to dig holes and carry heavy objects. Because of this I’ve developed a bad back, which means even if I should get a sudden yearning, I wouldn’t be able to do it.
We had two houses and maintaining both gardens had already become a burden for my wife. Inevitably something had to give and the house we spent most time in (a house on a lake that she absolutely loved) got the bulk of her attention. So, even before she passed away the garden of the other house (the one seen in these photographs, and where I now live) was suffering a little from neglect.
After she passed away, I eventually sold one of the houses, thus eliminating the need to maintain the garden there. But, over time the garden at the other house (where I’m now living) got more and more overgrown. The grass was OK because we had someone come and cut it, but the former flower beds were completely overgrown – eventually I had weeds that were taller than I am.
I tried on several occasions to get someone to help me. But I didn’t have good experiences. Many didn’t want to do it. While, they were happy to come along with mowers, weed whackers, leaf blowers etc. zoom around for 15 minutes and then leave, they didn’t want to deal with the flower beds. Some came and didn’t do a very good job. Some came and then suddenly stopped coming without even telling me. I more or less gave up (it’s not as if anyone but me can see the garden. It’s not visible from the street).
But I was sure that my wife would have been horrified by what I’d done to her garden, so I decided to give it another try.
My friend and neighbor had given me the contact information for his gardener, who he strongly recommended. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to call him or losing his contact information. I called my friend and once more asked for the contact information. This time I called the gardener before I lost it.
He (and his team) have now pretty much finished. And they’ve done a great job. He’s also agreed to help me maintain the garden, hopefully eliminating (or at least inhibiting) the re-growth of the weeds.
At the moment I’m very happy and optimistic that I’ll be able to keep the garden in good shape.
The garden is divided into two parts by a wooden fence which we had installed to keep the deer out. The picture above and the following five were all taken in the part north of the fence.
As the weeds disappeared roses started to become visible. In all I counted about 22 rose bushes. A few of them can be seen below.
Here are a few pictures from the part south of the fence, which borders on a meadow that is now turning into a forest! But that’s not my property so I don’t have to maintain it.
Finally, as I was taking the pictures above this morning, a deer turned up in the meadow/forest, no doubt checking out what was going on.
Taken with a variety of cameras and lenses.
Wisteria
Wisteria is lovely to look at. When we first came to live here there was a lot of it. But over time it seemed to disappear. Actually, it was still there and still growing, but it didn’t bloom. In the last couple of years, it’s started to bloom again.
The first picture was taken of a Wisteria actually growing up the side of my house. The second is growing over a tree in the meadow (actually it’s more like an incipient forest nowadays) in front of my house.
The only problem is that if you don’t like and/or don’t want it, it’s extremely difficult to get rid of.
Taken with a Sony A7IV and Tamron Di III VXD A056SF 70-180mm f2.8.
Arden Point and Glenclyffe
The other day I visited Arden Point and Glenclyffe.
Arden Point is a peninsula on the Hudson River in Garrison, NY. The trail starts at the end of the Garrison Metro North Station. From there a wooded trail parallels the train tracks and the Hudson River. It eventually divides with one trail going over the train tracks to loop around Arden Point eventually returning to the bridge over the tracks. Although not a long walk it has some impressive views looking both to the north and the south.
After you return over the railroad tracks, turn right and the trail continues to Glenclyffe is a 93-acre parcel of land on the Hudson River. It’s now the site of the Open Space Institute (housed in a quite spectacular former monastery). There’s also what now looks like, an abandoned mansion once owned by New York Governor, US Senator and Secretary of State (under Ulysses S. Grant) Hamilton Fish. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln, both visited it. One of the trails maps the route taken by Benedict Arnold as he fled down to a dock on the river, where he took a boat to H.M.S. Vulture to escape the British.
All told I walked for about three hours.
I have more pictures. If interested, you can find them here.
Taken with a Sony RX10 IV
I wandered lonely as a cloud
I always thought that the name of the famous poem by Wordsworth was “Daffodils”, but apparently it’s actually “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. I prefer “Daffodils”.
Here’s the poem:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
I didn’t have quite the experience that Wordsworth had:
- I was in a suburban New York town, so I didn’t see “…a crowd, a host of golden daffodils”, just the few that you see in the pictures.
- I wasn’t “beside the lake, beneath the trees” although I was quite close to the Hudson River.
- The daffodils were not “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”.
- There certainly weren’t “ten thousand” of them.
Still, I very much agree with the sentiments expressed in the final verse.
As I writ this (April 25, 2025) the daffodils are starting to fade.
Taken with a Sony RX10 IV
Taken with a Sony RX10 IV