Botanical Garden Outing

Saying that it was an “outing” makes it sound so proper, for some reason. Also, for some reason I want to add either an extra t or n in botanical. I don’t know why.

So, last Saturday, we visited the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. Once again, just like every time I go there, I’m shocked and amazed to live in a city that has such a treasure. Even after so many years, it is hard to get a grasp of the fact that there are so many things to do and wonderful things to see — and most of those things are free. Amazing.

The reason that we made this particular visit was to see the dinosaurs. I must admit to knowing nothing about the whole dinosaur installation except to say that you can read more about it here. They’ll be there until October. You should know this because you should go.

Here, look, this expression sums it all up.

And, if freaky dinosaurs aren’t your particular cup of tea, well, maybe you’d enjoy the freakily gorgeous plants.

While his brothers were attempting to commune with a pachy-cephalo-brota-tricera-thingy, J was sitting patiently on a nearby rock, lost in his thoughts. So I naturally started taking photos of him.

Beautiful hair, yes? The image doesn’t even do it justice. It is like every strand of his hair is a differently shaded strand of gold. I kid you not. Actually, I’ve got quite a bit of that gold laying around.

If anyone ever bemoans the declining numbers of blond, blue-eyed males on the planet, I want it to be known that I did my part.

One of my favorite parts of the garden is the Japanese section. It is so gorgeous. And, I should note, that it is a little stressful, too. Why? Well, because of the gravel, of course. All of that beautiful raked gravel — I fear when we get near it. Why? Well, because I’m afraid that at any point one of my males will decide that the gravel needs something else, something that only he can draw. Maybe it’s a Barlow thing. I’ll never forget my father-in-law admiring the gravel and then, gesturing to his pointy umbrella with a mischievous grin, asking, “What do y’all think? How about I write Sho Nuff in the gravel with the tip of this here umbrella?” That was a hoot.

The koi, oh yes. We can’t forget the koi and their beautiful colors and hauntingly weird, disturbing open mouths.

Of course, we had to visit with the koi a bit as we fed them their food. Speaking of visiting, my oldest son had 2 arms in this lake when we went to the garden last. I’m not sure, but I think that he may have been attempting to catch a koi of his own. So, we’re probably the reason for this fence. I mean, what would be the harm of grabbing a koi up out of the pond — that is how his mind works. Kind of reminds me of when we were at the zoo once and I admired an asian duck that they had. My baby immediately went missing and I was about to call security when I spied him climbing out of the duck enclosure. “Where were you?!”, I asked him frantically. He replied, “I went to get you that duck, Mama.” These males I live with, honestly.

For some reason, the aforementioned wannabe duck catcher needed to hold my hand on the bridge and so I obliged, of course.

I had attempted to write a little poem about our day at the garden but the only part that was coming together was a line I was going to put in there “I wore a skirt/The color of dirt/the ultimate mother apparel” but that’s all I came up with and so the poem shall not be shared. I do recommend you getting a skirt the color of dirt, though. Very useful.

You can see here that we come with squirrelly little brothers included.

That’s all until the next time we visit the garden which will hopefully be sooner rather than later.