Renewal

It's an old observation that spring is a time of renewal, the season when the earth starts another cycle. Something like that is happening in our home: it is Mrs.C and my 44th anniversary. Two people from about as different backgrounds as Americans could have, a farm in Kansas and an apartment in New York, have held together a long time. We are looking forward to many more years together.

The two of us, our daughter and our granddaughter, are taking a quick weekend trip to Pere Marquette Lodge in Illinois, on a bluff overlooking the Illinois and Missouri rivers. Photos starting tomorrow.        

Almost Like Being In Japan

Except that I could read the signs. We've been to Japan a few times and the only characters that stuck in my head are the words men and women (as in restrooms), entrance and exit, Tokyo and Kyoto, and oddly, the symbol for the possessive because it looks like the Western @ sign. The Japanese garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden is large and gorgeous, particularly on a cloudy early-spring day.         

Well, Maybe We'll Have An Ice Age Instead

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Given the difficulty of coming up with 730 photos a year that pass the stink test to cover two daily blogs, I think we'll wring a bit more out of last weekend's spring snow. This is in the gorgeous Japanese garden at our botanical park where, over Labor Day weekend, there is a big Japanese festival. If you are in the right place at the right time, you can get free sake.

Everybody talks about global warming (except for a scary number of nut-case science-deniers in this country) but for every trend there are statistical blips in the opposite direction. Look at a long term stock market chart. If I were a speculator I'd be more likely to buy land in Edmonton than Houston, but scenes like this make me wonder if we might see wooly mammoths again one day, parading down Vandeventer, hooking a turn onto Shaw and then through the garden gates.

We're selling a similar product on Downtown St. Louis 365 today. Hey, more artsy B&W!

Early Spring, Japanese Garden

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Seiwa-en, the Japanese garden, is my favorite part of the Missouri Botanical Garden. The name means the garden of pure, clear harmony and peace. It's not Kyoto but it's pretty damn good. This bridge or pathway runs just along the shore of a little lake. It has no direction. It doesn't go anywhere. Perhaps that is its lesson.

WHAT'S FINALLY HITTING ME OVER THE HEAD: OMG, it's just eight days until le voyage de notre trente-cinquième anniversaire de la mariage. Better study my vocabulary, vite!

TOMORROW: CDPB monthly theme day - yellow.